


Don't wake me up (I'm trying to find you)

by Ellarend



Series: I know it's warmer where you are [1]
Category: Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 58,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21532879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellarend/pseuds/Ellarend
Summary: Days, even weeks pass when she doesn’t think about Grace at all. When she’s content to work-work-work to save humanity and not think about herself, or her needs, or whether or not she gets any kind of emotional payoff from everything that’s happened. But...then she’ll hear a voice that sounds familiar, or see a flash of blonde hair, and a crack will appear in her emotional armour, reminding her that she can try and pretend, but deep down she knows...she’s never quite going to stop waiting.
Relationships: Grace & Dani Ramos, Grace/Dani Ramos, Sarah Connor & Dani Ramos
Series: I know it's warmer where you are [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551895
Comments: 289
Kudos: 347





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Don't Wake Me Up' by Lianne La Havas.
> 
> Tumblr @ ellarend.tumblr.com

Dani Ramos feels a little bit fucking ruined in this moment. 

Not because the new Judgement Day has been and gone, and she’s standing in the rubble of what used to be a bank, hiding from a HK. Not because she’s just had to fight through three people who were fighting a _child_ for food. Not because so many people depend on her to keep them alive.

No. She’s fucked because she’s been searching for what feels like a long, long time, and now the woman she’s been searching for is staring out at her from young eyes, the blueprint of an adult face sketched on teenage bones, Grace drawn in miniature and incomplete. 

Hero worship already sits behind those eyes, and how can she explain to this, this _teenager-almost-adult_ , that she’s just waiting for her to get older? 

War is straight-forward, but the reality of this…?

*

She knew, of course, from Grace herself that when they meet for the first time, it’s an older version of her meeting a younger version of Grace, but there’s knowing, and then there’s _knowing_. She now has some idea of how much longer she has to wait to meet a woman that she hopes will love her back, and the weight of that time pushes at her lungs, leaving her just a little breathless as she leads Now-Grace out of the ruined building. 

*

It becomes a bit of a mess. Dani tries her best, but the longing for FuturePast-Grace becomes tangled in the guilt of how she’s treating Now-Grace. They're not the same person to her, she realises. So. She tries to find the right level to build a bond with Now-Grace, while trying not to get too attached, or letting Grace get too attached to her as a mother-figure. She plays the concerned commander, and that’s it. She can’t get over that she sexualizes a future version of this person, and that’s the person she’s waiting for. The less time she spends with Now-Grace, the more she can keep the two versions separate in her mind. 

Then she starts worrying: what if she’s not treating Grace the same way this time around? What if the Dani FuturePast-Grace knew was more supportive? More present? What if she does something different here and now, and affects how Grace fights or reacts in the past...and if Grace fails, will Dani cease to exist? What if by making different choices, she makes Grace a different person? 

What if she can’t make Grace in the future the woman who makes her in the past? 

She gets so tangled in time-travel worries, in what-if's and maybes and buts, that she almost thinks herself into inaction, into being so worried of anything she could do that she almost loses the chance to do anything at all, almost gives up before she begins. She comes to the conclusion that the only thing she can do is listen to her instincts, do the best she can, and hope like hell everything works out in the end. 

So, she’s kind (Grace is a traumatized teen girl, for fucks sake, of course she’s _kind_ ), but she’s also distant. She finds Grace a great home with a good family. She stops in occasionally, and makes sure Grace gets enough food, and the best teachers. Very occasionally, she stops by and has a cup of tea with Grace and her guardians. 

She’s so, so careful not to interact too much, though. 

*

The years pass. She goes from head of a scavenger group to head of a militia to head of an army, with structure, ranks, her own office in their salvaged underground base. She works. She proves herself every single second to every single doubter who believes a woman - a foriegn woman, a short woman, a young woman - can’t possibly be the salvation they need. 

She becomes the leader she was told she was. She inspires. She fights. She turns the tide. And underneath it all is the blue flame of desperation, setting her mind to a roiling boil, thoughts of Grace tumbling through her, warming her and driving her like a generator.

When Grace turns 18 and enlists, she makes sure she gets assigned to the best trainers. When Grace turns 21, she wonders...but it still feels too soon. She doesn’t know how she’s supposed to know when the right time _will_ be and, God, the waiting is so hard. They still interact - she gets the occasional letter from Grace, detailing her life, her training, her squadron mates. She sometimes replies, but only with short, impersonal notes. They occasionally cross paths in bases and bunkers, and Dani always feels her heart lift when she see's her...but she still looks just a little different than the Grace she remembers. It gets to the point where Dani just does not know what to do, and so she buries herself in her work.

Eventually, days, even weeks pass when she doesn’t think about Grace at all. When she’s content to work-work-work to save humanity and not think about herself, or her needs, or whether or not she gets any kind of emotional payoff from everything that’s happened. But...then she’ll hear a voice that sounds familiar, or see a flash of blonde hair, and a crack will appear in her emotional armour, reminding her that she can try and pretend, but deep down she knows she’s never quite going to stop waiting. 

*

Despite knowing that she won't, despite having actively registered that thought...She's human, and she doubts - just sometimes - as the years pass. She knows Grace must be in her mid-twenties by now and sometimes she wonders if it might not happen at all - if, in this future, Grace finds someone else. 

Once she thinks about Grace finding happiness without her, she can’t shake it. It burrows into her, weakens her, feeds into her worst fear. After a few months of doubt, of worry, of just not _knowing_ , she enters into an on-again-off-again relationship with a Major from one of the Eastern divisions. It’s a disaster. Eventually, Dani blames the stresses of command on her inability to focus on the relationship, when the truth is, she realises she’s never quite going to be able to give all of herself to anyone else. 

*

Not long after that, it occurs to her one day when she’s thinking about Grace that she’ll never learn the harsh lessons she needs to become a leader without losing Grace in the future and killing her in the past. 

She drinks herself to sleep for a week after that thought, because what’s the damn point? Why bother waiting for someone she _spent all of a few days with, and slept with twice in the midst of the biggest cluster-fuck of her life?_

She starts to question whether it was even real, what she felt then, or whether she was projecting onto her protector; and whether Grace was just taking comfort where it was offered. Whether it was a bond forged of exceptional circumstances, rather than exceptional love. 

The last nail in her mental coffin comes when she realises that no-ones going to magically create the augmentation programme for her. Unless she can stop Legion before Grace needs to go back (and God knows, she's _trying_ ), she will need to be the one that drives the programme that turns Grace into a hybrid, that cuts her skin and breaks her ribs and takes out her eye and puts a goddamn reactor in her belly. 

With an increased heaviness of soul, she starts a specialist science division to work on the problem, and reads their reports as they work. She sends them notes on what might work based on what she can remember of Grace’s set up, and they don’t question her as to where she’s getting her ideas from. It's necessary, but it just feels like _too much_ , and she's so tired of being alone. 

She starts to spiral. She drinks a little more than she should. She takes comfort from people she barely knows, and she ignores the voice in her head telling her to hold on, just _hold on hold on._ She can't though. She's doubting something that was load-bearing, important, to her emotional equilibrium, and now she's adrift, wobbling; she's lost her grip on something that gave her strength. 

It’s her XO who pulls her out of it, when she makes a bad call that almost gets a squadron ambushed. He pulls her to the side and begs her to tell him what’s going on. She can’t. She wants to, but the story is too big, the emotions too fractured. She pressed a hand down on her sternum, meets his gaze and shakes her head. So he does what all good XO’s should do when the woman saving the Earth isn’t pulling her weight: he calls her on her shit, reminds her of what’s at stake and tells her to get her head out of her ass because she’s not just a woman - she’s a symbol, The Commander, and they need her. 

It takes a while for that to sink in, but it does, and it helps that the next time she stands in front of her troops, delivering a rousing speech, inspiring and energising them, she sees those blue eyes staring back at her from the third row, full of pride and... _something_ she can't name, but that engenders a feeling to rise in her chest. She feels something inside her knit back together, the torn pieces of her psyche mending as her purpose recrystallizes inside her. 

She remembers: She has a world to save. And she’s not going to let Grace die for her twice. 

*

After her major moment of doubt, she takes herself back into her memories, back to the time they shared, looking for reassurance. When she isn’t saving the world, in those rare and precious moments when she has time for herself, she remembers. She day-dreams. She thinks about their stolen moments; how everything they did seemed to add to a narrative that she didn’t know she was writing, but that inked its way into her bones. 

She remembers their first meeting. The confusion of her father raising a gun. The security guard coming out of nowhere and shooting her father with a shotgun. The horror of seeing her father drop. The shock of realising the guard was female, strong arms wrapping around her, and those eyes. Then the machine revealing itself, and they run-run-run through the factory floor.

She remembers what Grace did with the sledgehammer (and she’s far enough away from the visceral horror of the moment that sometimes she stops in the memory and appreciates Grace’s form as she fights. The strength in those one handed swings makes Dani shiver). 

She remembers making the choices that changed the direction of her life. Of listening to Grace when Grace begged her not to go to the police, saying her name with such desperate familiarity (“Dani, _please_.”) that it stops Dani in her tracks, creates a nameless emotion within her, a sort of emotional magnetism she can't walk away from. Of diving for the gun in the pharmacy when, at that point, she could have let Grace and herself be arrested, explained the situation to the authorities. She could have put her faith in the establishment she _knew_ , instead of a sick stranger. 

That was the moment when ‘I’ became ‘Us’, and she doesn’t even know how it happened. Why she chose what she did. Faced with pointing a gun at an innocent man, or putting Grace in harm's way? She’d made that choice faster than any other choice in her life It just...it felt like it wasn’t a choice. 

And that's how she feels about waiting, now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out, trying to write a story that skips back and forth between past and present is confusing as all get out. My apologies if I haven't managed to make it as coherent as I'd hoped!
> 
> Some scenes diverge/expand upon movie canon.
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments - I will reply tomorrow. 
> 
> And yes, there is a Grace POV version in the works :)

When Dani sleeps that night, she dreams of watching a prone Grace in a crappy motel room, of studying the lines of her face and the lines of her scars, wondering what would possibly inspire someone to allow themselves to be cut, peeled and ‘augmented’ to this degree. 

She steps closer, hovering over Grace, and she can’t seem to stop herself from picking up a cloth and a bottle of water, and sitting on the edge of the bed. Hesitantly, she wipes the face and neck of her fragile protector, cooling hot skin with the cold cloth. She wonders why she, Dani, is so damn important for someone like this to go through so much: so much pain, so much grief, so much sickness. 

As she looks down, she feels something spark in her chest, a tiny bloom of emotion that she doesn’t know how to name, not yet. 

*

When she wakes the next day, back in the future here-and-now, the reminder of how that fragile emotion felt feels like a revelation. She carries it settled deep in her chest, a spark that feeds a fire she's been lax in tending. It helps to remind her what she’s doing all of this for, revitalises her. 

She decides that she’s done waiting; that maybe she can make this the right time somehow, maybe approach Grace and...The more she thinks about it, the more she realises she's not at all sure how she's going to bridge the gap between their relationship now and the one she wishes they could have, but the more she realises she wants to try. She misses FuturePast-Grace still, a visceral ache, and she's done living with it. She's left it so much time - too much time - for Grace to grow, to stop being a child, that maybe (or definitely) she's been over-cautious and left it too long. 

Of course, though, the moment she decides that maybe it's time to move forward, she gets precisely zero chance to put any kind of plan into action for months. The machine attacks get more frequent, the machine evolution gets more pronounced, and her time is spent trying to minimise the cost of the war, to save as many lives as possible by learning how to defeat each new model as quickly as possible. She is so lost in the fight that she loses track - perhaps somewhat willingly, perhaps not getting an opportunity to move forward is _too hard_ \- of where Grace is, how she’s doing. 

That’s why it’s such a surprise to literally run into her in the corridors of the old underground train depot that they’ve made their current headquarters. 

She's turning a corner, head down, marching quickly, devouring reports from the front line, until the soft-hard roadblock of a body stops her short. They both stumble, and she’s apologising shortly as they bend down to pick up folders, photos, papers. They both reach for the same report, hands tangling and Dani glances up only to freeze. A shot of adrenalin short-circuits her brain, makes her chest tight. She doesn't move for a long moment, desperately aware of the warmth of their tangled fingers. 

It's Grace who comes back to herself first, who drops Dani's hand and snaps to attention, saluting with the precision and verve of a young soldier. Dani has been wearing the uniform of commander for long enough now that she can act the part whatever her inner turmoil might be, and she collects the dropped papers carefully before standing and returning the salute. 

“Grace”. She clears her throat. “Good to see you. And you got a promotion. Well done.” 

In the lines of Grace's body, Dani can see the young soldier desperate to impress the commander. She can see the young woman unsure of her place. It’s not quite the Grace she knows, but it’s close, so close. 

“Commander Ramos,” Grace is standing so taut she’s practically vibrating. “I…” She’s hesitant, and she licks her lips. Dani notices the motion. Whatever Grace was going to say, though, there's an infinitesimally small shake of the head, and instead she says, “Thank you.” 

Dani nods and turns her attention back to the papers. Now that she has an opportunity, she has absolutely zero idea what to say and hiding behind professionalism is easier than staring at the face that finally, finally looks familiar. She thinks if she gives herself permission to look she’ll never stop, and she doesn’t want to frighten Grace away. She clears her throat, taps the papers neatly square in the file to give herself a moment, and nods again before heading away, her mind a blank, kicking herself for not saying _something_. 

She glances back to see Grace rubbing her sternum. Damn height difference. 

*

After that, she heads to back her office, and tries to read reports, but her proximity to Grace has triggered memories; they're sneaking into her thoughts like her long-range scouts, infiltrating into her attention span like spies.

She day-dreams again of the motel. Of cleaning Grace’s face and neck and shoulders, admiring the musculature and tracing the lines of the scars. They’re everywhere: her arms, her midriff, her legs, under her eyes. Even her fingers, travelling the length of the long digits, circling the joints. There are details she's thought she'd forgotten, but now they're stark and clear in her minds eye.

After a while, she thinks Grace is waking and calls out her name softly, staring down...and then Sarah is coming back into the room without warning, and she remembers moving away from Grace awkwardly and too quickly, fingers fumbling, spilling her bottle of water on the cheap carpet. 

Sarah takes the scene in. Her jaw tightens. She eyes the semi-conscious Grace, and then hurrumphs at Dani to go get some more water and potato chips: off-balance and flustered, Dani agrees. When she comes back, she remembers she finds the door is locked, and there’s no answer from inside. 

She's locked out, panic growing, feeling vulnerable and hating it, calling out for Sarah to open the door, until Grace does. She's so surprised to see her suddenly up and about and the minute she sees the other woman, her heart contracts, her chest tightens; it’s like she’s dunked in ice water for a second, the way her body reacts. 

Although physically Grace seems to be fine, Dani can tell something’s happened between her and Sarah; there’s a tension in the room despite Sarah’s usual cocksure air. She finally sees something other than 'badass', though, as Sarah begins to reveal her story. Dani remembers that while watching Sarah reveal a little of her history, the depth of the older woman’s heartbreak peeks through, as much as she tries to hide it. The fact that she’s been through some of what Dani’s going through...It humanises her, this mysterious warrior woman, and Dani feels that her heart goes out to her a little. Grace, she can tell, isn’t quite sold though. She impresses on Sarah that Dani is _her_ mission, to which Sarah retaliates with the fact that without her, in this time, they won’t get far.

Just like that, Dani feels her situation goes from ‘I’, to ‘Us’, to ‘We’. 

*

They have a moment, a small one, when Sarah is packing the car after Grace has gone out, and they've exchanged words. The situation is starting to get to Dani, and Sarah’s story and the sadness it engenders - and Sarah’s “Mommies and Daddies” comment, because what the _fuck_ \- compounds her own sadness and anger over her father and brother.

When Grace comes in to get her, it all commingals into an anger that drives her to turn on the tall woman. She is not a child, she’s a grief-stricken woman, and she wants answers. When she turns on Grace and questions her, she’s driven by adrenaline, fear and shock, the grief of the day spilling out in ugly questions and sharp language. There was always going to be a moment where she stopped accepting that ROBOTS FROM THE FUTURE were trying to kill her, a moment where her brain tries to reject the madness, tries to regain its equilibrium, and this is it, manifesting in anger. She doesn’t even give Grace the chance to answer, spitting questions like bullets, and half of them are in Spanish, such is her state of upset ( _“Who sent you? Why me? How did you find me? Twenty-forty two! Are you kidding me?! What the hell kind of situation is this??”_ ). 

She remembers getting closer, and Grace, the warrior, stepping back, back, until her lower legs hit the bed and she sits with a thump. At the time, too scared to worry about personal space, she’d kept going until she stood just between Grace’s knees, punctuating her anger with a finger jabbed against Grace’s collarbone. 

She must hit a sore spot; Grace reaches out, lightning fast but gentle, and grabs the digit. With Grace sat, Dani almost looks down at her. Dani’s breathing too fast, but so’s Grace. They lock gazes, and that’s what it feels like - a lock. Something unbreakable without a key, and Dani doesn’t know what that might be, so she’s trapped in the blue blue blue of Grace’s eyes. She can’t look away. 

Grace reaches up, her fingers milimetres from Dani’s cheek, her eyes wide and searching. Dani can feel her eyebrows pull together in confusion, her body sway forward, when Sarah barrels through the door. 

The moment’s broken, and Dani steps away to the bathroom to collect her thoughts. She hears Sarah say something to Grace, but doesn’t hear the augmented woman’s response, and by the time she exits the bathroom, they’re both in the car. 

* 

Coming back to the present, she abandons trying to read reports. Her memory skips forward and backward, cherry-picking moments. Next, she remembers the train: trying to navigate the platform and not draw attention to the two whitest people on the planet; gathering food, finding them a spot to hop on. Finding them a spot to sit down together. 

Once on and settled and the train is moving, she shares out the food, including some candy bars, and it’s the only time she really sees Graces’ attention waver from her, just for a second. 

“What, they don’t have chocolate in the future?” she ask, a hint of a smile on her face. 

Grace is handling the bar gently, lost in thought. When she looks up, her eyes are distant, almost misty, before she shakes her head. “No. Not a lot. Fresh food is hard to get. The beans are hard to grow safely. It’s...not worth the loss of life.” 

The way she’s holding the bar though, makes Dani think that it’s worth something to her. She looks away, and inches closer. 

*

Blinking back to the present, she's excited - she thinks this could be a way to get to Grace, to open a dialogue. She's always remembered that moment; remembered how Grace responded to the chocolate, as it stood out as a moment of softness during a time that was so much hardness and rage and fear. 

She's always wondered why Grace felt that way about the chocolate, and now she thinks - she _hopes_ \- that she knows.

Over the next few days, she sources some chocolate from one of their underground hydroponic facilities. It’s dry and crumbly, and not actually all that sweet, but it’s heavenly compared to their usual protein based rations. 

She drops by Grace’s family and leaves it with them, tells them it's to belatedly congratulate her on her promotion, and Grace's birthday is approaching anyway. It’s not odd; she leaves a small something now and again, for birthdays or Christmas; She does the same for a few other people though-out the year: friends, her XO. 

She will admit though, it’s not normally something as hard to source as honest-to-goodness chocolate.

*

After that, her mind keeps travelling back to different memories at inappropriate times - during meetings, inspections, squadron tours. She hasn't had this much trouble keeping Grace out of her thoughts since the very start, but every time she relaxes, another memory inserts itself into her consciousness. Like now: she's sat in her office, fork hovering over a bland protein lunch, lost in thought. 

She's back on the train, hearing Grace’s story, and feeling waves of...hero worship? Gratitude? Pity? Attraction? At the time, it’s all a jumbled mess inside her, and looking at Grace just makes it worse. Then, sarah’s going on about Dani’s womb again (she really wishes she would stop that), and at some point, something she says makes Grace snap. Dani’s not sure what Sarah says to get to Grace so - her memory is just Grace's profile with Sarah in the background at this point - but clearly something has gotten under her skin. She wants to help, but doesn’t know what to say in that moment to the other woman and feels powerless when Grace stands and moves away, angry. She turns to Sarah to chastise her, but Sarah just raises an eyebrow, shrugs, and forks another mouthful of food into her mouth. 

She doesn't know what to do, so she lies down, placing her head on her bag, and listens to Sarah do the same nearby. Grace isn't moving, a ramrod straight silhouette against the sunset, and Dani desperately wishes she could know what to say to her to ease whatever it is Sarah has triggered. As she's lying on the chill metal of the roof, her eyes find Grace’s back again and again, and she traces the shape of her against the evening sky. She doesn’t want to disturb her but when she sees her shoulders shudder once and then twice, she finds she can't sit still. 

“What’s wrong?” She asks, coming to stand next to her, speaking quietly so Sarah won’t wake. Not that she thinks she will - she’s snoring like, well, a freight train. She gives in to her impulse to put a comforting hand on Grace’s back. 

“Nothing,” Grace replies, jaw tense. There are no tears, but there’s a tightness to her jaw and a tightness around the eyes that suggest that it was a possibility. “You should get some sleep.” 

“ _You_ should get some sleep,” Dani replies. “What good are you to me if you can’t stay awake to protect me?” She’s trying to tease, trying to lighten the mood and she tests her influence over Grace by trying to pull her back to their spot in the middle of the roof, pushing her down into a seated position. She puts her hands on her hips, stands over her smiling, and tries to look intimidating. “I order you to get some sleep.” 

She doesn’t miss Grace’s eyes widening or the expression that appears on her face for a split second, but neither does she understand it in the past, and then the moment’s gone. Grace comes the closest Dani’s seen her to smiling, a slightly sardonic tone colouring her words. “Yes _ma’am_ , but-” she grasps Dani’s hand and tugs, “only if you sleep too.” 

Dani’s skin burns under Grace’s touch and she stares for a moment into those eyes before nodding and semi-smiling back, but her smile feels off, like it’s not settling correctly on her mouth. “Si, okay.” 

She lies down, pulling a black bag under her head, and turns her back to Grace. 

*

On the train, the temperature drops alarmingly once the night fully sets in. Dani finds herself, in a half-asleep state, inching closer to warmth she can feel at her back as she shivers. It isn’t until she’s worming backward and her butt comes into contact with a body that she realises the source of the warmth is Grace. Now, she’s wide awake, and she starts to apologise, making to move away.

“Stop.” Grace’s voice is quiet, but authoritative. A hand comes up and holds her hip. Dani holds her breath. “It’s okay." Says Grace. "It’s cold.” 

Dani can feel every muscle in her body tensing. She’s breathing shallowly, and she doesn’t know why. In the time it takes her to decide whether she’s going to get up, or lean back, Grace makes up her mind for her. She hears a sigh, and then Grace is pressing up against the length of her. The hand on her hip moves forward but Grace clearly doesn’t know where to put it, so it ends up on the cold roof of train. She feels Grace raise her head, and then she's talking into her ear.

“It’s my augmentation, my power source,” Grace says, and the sensation of breath passing her skin makes every nerve she has flutter in unison. She can’t help but shudder, and it seems to make Grace hesitate for a second before continuing. “It, uh...it makes me warm.” 

Dani has never felt so damn wide awake. Her mind is all over the place. Her heart is racing. But all she can manage is, “Okay.” 

She puts her head down on the bag and tries to focus on the sound and speed of the train, and not the warmth of the woman behind her.

Somehow, they fall asleep, and when she comes to, she realises that during the night, she must have turned over so that they’re nose to nose, and she can feel Grace's breath on her face. She opens her eyes just a crack, and finds Grace staring at her. It could be a little creepy, but in fact it’s unguarded, sweet, but terribly sad, and Dani finds her emotions swelling inside her, the seed planted in the motel room growing and flowering and filling her to the brim with something she doesn't have the words to describe. She leans forward bird-quick and fits her mouth against Grace’s. It’s short, sweet and over so quickly, when Grace turns away, sits up and raises a hand to her mouth, looking like Dani’s just slapped her. 

Dani raises a hand to stop her when she stands, but Grace is away and standing on the front of the carriage, back straight and full of tension, before Dani can even coordinate to stand. 

“Leave her be.” It’s Sarah’s raspy voice that stops her from chasing Grace immediately. “There’s no time to be muddying the waters. Don’t distract her.”

So Dani sits, and watches the morning sun silhouette Grace like an aura, like she's dipped in light, and wonders what she did wrong. 

*

In the present, Dani takes a breath as she's interrupted from her reverie by a knock on her office door. She takes a moment to put all of that memory and emotion back in its box, and smooths down her uniform as she stands. “Come in.” 

She’s not prepared for Grace, not after being so deep in memories of her, and the sight of her spikes her heart rate. She hides it with a tight smile, ever the professional, and indicates a chair. “Sit. What do you need.” 

This Grace is strong and well-trained, but younger and much more awkward than the FuturePast version. She fidgets a little in her chair, runs a hand through her hair, takes a deep breath. “I just wanted to say thank you. For the chocolate, Commander Ramos.” 

“Dani,” Dani corrects gently. 

“Yes, Commander...Uh, Dani...” Dani can tell Grace is beating herself up mentally for her own awkwardness, and she hides a smile as best she can. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Of course this is what she wanted when she sent the chocolate, but now that the moment is here, Dani has no idea what to say. She examines Grace, not meaning to but helpless not to mark the differences between the woman here now and the woman from her memory. She holds Grace’s gaze, and realises that there’s intention, simple and direct, in it that she’s not seen in Grace before in this time, unmired as it is by sadness or loss. 

The woman she fell in love with was broken by the act of leaving her here, in the future. There’s no sadness like that in this Grace, not yet, and there won’t be until she meets her in the past. This is a Grace un-broken, un-bent by her experience, still fully human, and for the first time, she realises, really realises bone deep, that she’s not getting the woman she remembers back.

With this realisation, the feeling that hits her is like grief. Grace blurs in front of her like a mirage, her idea of the woman and this reality of the woman separating for good. As Grace opens her mouth to say, “Com-...Dani...look, I wondered...Well, I was thinking if you'd-” she overlays it with, “Grace, I’m sorry, but I have a lot of work to do.” 

It’s like something crumbles in Grace’s expression and Dani hates herself a little bit, but she needs time to come to terms with this new feeling, she needs space. 

Grace visibly smarts, and just as visibly pulls herself together. Dani had forgotten how expressive those damn eyes were, up close and unblurred by memory. She stands and salutes, impersonal and parade-perfect, and Dani returns it. 

It’s not until Grace’s hand is on the door handle that Dani feels something rise up in her, and she calls out. “Grace. I really do have a lot of work. But...maybe come by another time.” 

The spark of hope that ignites in Grace’s eyes sticks in Dani’s mind for days. 

*


	3. Chapter 3

After her encounter with Grace in her office, she can’t help but remember another time she felt she’d disappointed the other woman. Another time, like now, where she didn't know how to make sure that they were still okay. 

*

At the end of the train ride, she still hasn’t been able to think of how to talk to Grace. She wracks her brain, but she’s a traumatised, weary early-twenty-something in an impossible situation, and no matter what she thinks of to say, it seems inadequate to address the emotional needs of a warrior from the future. 

She wishes she could help, but Grace is distant, and no tool in her vocabulary - In English or Spanish - seems good enough, clever enough to help her bridge that gap. She feels like she’s failing, somehow - Grace has travelled _through time_ to help her, and she can’t even fix a stupid mistake from _last night_.

They get off the train and re-group by the tracks, and even though there’s tension between them Grace is still protective; Dani can feel the weight of her attention, and it makes her feel even guiltier. Silence cocoons her: she doesn't know how to cut through it, how to approach the other woman. She feels like a child, inexperienced, unsure of herself, and she hates it. 

They pick up bags and settle them on shoulders and backs, adjusting straps, all without a word. She can feel Sarah, eyeing the pair of them like exasperating children. She thinks Sarah won't say anything, but before they leave, Sarah lets out a noise that's part-sigh-part-growl and holds up a hand to stop them moving on. She has her hands on her hips, and pauses like she's going to impart the wisdom of the world to them. Dani feels hopeful, for a moment, that whatever Sarah says will _fix_ this: that she'll burst through the awkwardness with brutish bluntness and force them back to an even keel, that it will leave she and Grace united in their shock at whatever profane wisdom Sarah is going to attempt to share. They stand there frozen for a moment, both staring at Sarah, expectant and cautious and unsure what to expect.

Instead, Sarah stares at them both for a long moment, at their hesitant posture, at them not meeting each other's gazes, makes a noise like, "Pffffuuggggghhhhhh," and very clearly gives up on whatever meddling she had thought to attempt, shrugging and rolling her eyes so hard that Dani's surprised she doesn't hurt herself. So, no help there then. 

Leaving the train-tracks, Dani points them in the right direction, and they're walking for a while. Sarah stalks ahead, occasionally glancing back and muttering to herself, and Grace follows at the rear, quiet and watchful. It's not long before they find a truck heading to her Uncle's house. They talk themselves into a ride (although personally Dani seems to remember it as Sarah _scaring_ the driver into giving them a ride), climbing into the bed of a pickup and settling down. She and Grace sit opposite each other at the rear, Sarah leans against the cab at the front of the bed, and they travel in silence for the first thirty minutes. In that time, Dani feels the certainty crystallise within her that she will need to fix this _thing_ that's broken, and she can do it - she holds that certainty close, feels her call to action flower in her mind.

After a while, though, Dani doesn’t know if it’s stress, worry or fear that’s draining her, but she finds herself nodding off, struggling to keep her eyes open. She leans against the side of the truck, tips her head back and closes her eyes, taking deep breaths, pulling air in and feeling it fill her, travel through her lungs and limbs, trying to settle her exhausted body. 

“Dani,” It’s unexpected, and she jumps. Grace looks faintly abashed, and won’t quite meet her eyes. “You’re exhausted.” She's offering to make room for Dani to lie down, to scoot out of the way. 

She wonders if she should joke like she did last night, try and ease the tension, but something in Grace’s demeanour stops her. She stares until Grace meets her eyes, and sees worry, and something else that she can’t place. 

Well. She feels like, with everything that’s happening...She's already decided to become a woman of action, and this can be her first. She touches Grace's ankle to stop her from moving, and - heart thumping - she gravitates to Grace’s lap without asking, lying down across her legs the best she can in the limited space. The other woman doesn’t stop her, but then she worries - has she crossed a line? Taken too much for granted? 

She lies rigid and suddenly wide-awake, feeling muscles in Grace's leg twitch under her cheek, until finally, she feels the ghost of a touch on her hair, her shoulder, like Grace is testing her to see if she's real. After a pause though, she feels Grace take a deep breath, and a hand slowly comes to rest on Dani's shoulder, the hesitancy in the touch making her heart ache. There's a moment of just touching, and then the thumb moves awkwardly back and forth. It's enough: enough to relax her, enough for her to understand that Grace isn't offended, isn't upset with her after the kiss, and sleep creeps into her body like a sunset, inexorably crawling across her landscape. 

She also remembers that just as she's falling asleep in the back of the truck, she glances up and catches the weight of Sarah’s disapproving stare. 

*

She shakes off the memory - she doesn't think that lying in Grace's lap is going to fix the problem this time - and over the next few days tries to get back into her daily rhythm. She finds, though, that nothing quite gels like it used to; she feels a little awkward, unsettled.

Grace tries to get hold of her a few days later, but Dani is in meetings, and doesn't return her messages at the end of the day. She could, but she balks like a horse at a jump, suddenly scared, and doesn't: she justifies it by working late, telling herself she's too busy. A few days after that, Grace tries again, stopping by her office - but Dani is out inspecting the new armour production facilities, and gets back to base too late to think about talking to the other woman.

The next day though, Dani is monitoring their eastern border in the primary Command and Control Ops room. She’s surrounded by screens and scurrying soldiers, all there for her, feeding her information, deferential and efficient. Sometimes it still makes her laugh; she’s directing the rescue of the human race from a country that would have left her to rot as a ‘detainee’ when she first arrived, a country that gave her worth absolutely no weight. And now...the U.S.A is being saved by an undocumented Mexican woman. The thought makes her smile. 

She’s still smiling a small private smile when an aide tells her a soldier outside is asking for her. Her heart jumps, just a little, when she hears Grace’s voice from the corridor. It must be important, for Grace to come to Command, and she waves at her aide to let her in. 

Grace is a professional soldier, but she's clearly excited, and not good at suppressing it. Her eyes are on Dani from across the room, and she doesn't look away as she approaches - it's almost like she hasn't noticed anyone else is there, so little does she acknowledge the humanity around her. Dani feels a moment of almost-panic, like she's forgetting how to function when pinned down by that gaze, but she shakes it off before it takes hold. "Commander." 

“Corporal,” Dani says, and Grace is closer than she’s been in a long time, corridor incident notwithstanding. Dani forgets how tall she is. How attractive that is. She has a sudden, uncontrollable flash of memory of being picked up in a remote cabin, of strong arms supporting her, of a wall at her back. She swallows that thought, and nods at Grace’s salute. “How can I help? Do you have a report from your squadron? Is there something we need to know?”

She's honestly a little confused as to why Grace would come to Ops to talk if it's not a) war-related, and/or b) pretty urgent, and she feels a stir of worry, hopes nothing has happened to her parents, although Grace's body-language isn't screaming 'bad news'. 

“Well. I…” Grace is nervous, and she takes off her uniform cap, running the edge through her fingers. “It’s just...We’re going to have a drink. For my birthday. Tomorrow night. I wondered...I wondered if you’d like to go. To stop by. If you’re not busy. It's in the Western Mess Hall, tomorrow, at 20:00,” The last is all said in a rush. 

Dani is taken-aback. Grace is a good soldier; she would know that a venue like this would be an inappropriate one for an invitation of this nature, but looking at the woman, she can see impatience and excitement and _youth_ spilling out of every pore, informing every movement. It's...endearing - maybe a little charming, if she admits it to herself. It's like she couldn't wait to ask once she'd made up her mind, like Dani's that important. 

But...She, Dani, has to feel every inch the leader, unimpeachable, unassailable, otherwise there's too much room for doubt in her mind, and she’s desperately aware of a room full of people who have just heard her be awkwardly asked out for a drink by a young soldier. She knows how to play the game at this point: that appearances are everything, and that it’s not done for the leader of the resistance to accept invites to party with the common soldiery. She’s not stupid - out there are people who say a five-foot nothing woman should not be leading, who will pick apart her every mis-step, who will attack her for _anything_. She can’t give them any more ammunition. She can’t show favouritism or weakness, or sometimes - like now - her humanity. Being a symbol means, sometimes, becoming a presence and force, rather than a human being.

She knows she should rebuke Grace, should make it very clear to her and - more importantly - to the surrounding room that this sort of interruption is entirely inappropriate and worse, a complete disregard for the war effort, their work, her time and her attention. She knows she should take Grace to task, right here and now for this. She hesitates, though...Despite all of these things she _knows_ , the things she _feels_ threaten to derail her. She's reeling, in a way; few people talk to her as _Dani_ , rather than Commander, and of those, none would have the balls to ask her out in the middle of Command Ops. 

It's no good though. As much as she wishes she could answer as herself - that this was a normal conversation, and she could allow herself excitement, breathless anticipation - she can't. She draws herself up, hands behind her back, face a mask. “Corporal. This is not an appropriate venue for this kind of conversation." She should go further, should take Grace to pieces, but she can't seem to make herself do it. Instead, she picks up a file, opens it, starts reading: the conversation is over. 

Grace blinks. She wasn't expecting this kind of response, clearly, and she swallows once, twice, before saying, "Dani, I-" 

_"Commander,"_ the correction is sharp and absolute. And Dani hates having to do it.

Now, a murmur runs around the room. Dani, to her own horror, feels her cheeks heat slowly, and she ignores it as best she can. Grace seems to suddenly realise that actually, they're not alone, that this isn't a private conversation. She blinks, as if she's coming back to herself, and appears to register the murmur as well. She looks like twin sledgehammers of embarrassment and exposure have smacked into her sternum, winding her. Throwing a hasty salute, she backs out of the room as quickly as she can. 

“Back to work!” Dani calls to the room, turning back to her station as if the whole encounter hasn’t shaken her, as if Grace's confusion and hurt won't follow her for the rest of the day.

*

She’s seen that look - of embarrassment, of Grace thinking she’s over-reached - once before.

It takes her moment to remember where, though, but it comes to her eventually: there’s something that happens at her Uncle's house that stays with Dani, other than the display of machine precision that is Grace slicing in a fly in half while it’s on the wing. (She thinks she ought to find that scary - she doesn’t).

They have a few hours before they have to leave while her Uncle prepares for their trip, and he offers them the use of showers and a spare bedroom. Without asking, Sarah heads for the shower first, ignoring the other two as they ask her, once again, not to use all the hot water (the motel bathroom was bad enough - the motel bathroom with no hot water was a hellscape). Grace is still sitting at the table, examining the fly with idle interest while she eats. But, when Dani gets up, Grace goes to move, to follow, until Dani stops her. 

“Stay. Eat.” She smiles, or tries to, exhaustion weighing on her. “I’m only going for a nap.” She can see objections lining up in the furrow of Grace’s brow, the pursing of her lips and for-stalls them with a hand, pointing to a door. “I’ll be in the back bedroom. Just in there.” 

She rests a hand on Grace’s shoulder as she passes, to try and express that she's happy that they’re talking again, unsure of how else to communicate that fact. She doesn’t question how comfortable she is being tactile with Grace. 

“I’ll be right outside,” she hears Grace call as she heads back. She nods, and opens the door. She spares the room a glance - a bed, a bare bedside table, nothing more - but the minute the door closes behind her, she feels the insanity of the situation pressing in on her. She takes deep breaths, heads to the bed, sits on the edge. She hears a chair being moved outside and placed by the door, hears Grace slump into it. 

That makes her feel better, just for a moment, but then she feels everything she’s been pushing down since the factory push back, rising in her like nausea, disorientating and upsetting and uncontrollable. 

She grabs a pillow and presses her face down into it on her lap, trying to muffle the insistent sobs that are suddenly being dragged out of her, fished from her depths with clockwork regularity, like something’s reaching down into her and hooking them out and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. 

The worst part is, even if no-one else can, she knows Grace can hear her. She’s right; within a few moments, there’s a knock on the door that manages to sound both heavy and hesitant. Her throat is too tight to call out, but it doesn’t matter; Grace knocks again, and when she doesn’t receive an answer opens the door anyway. 

Dani doesn’t look at her. She lifts her head, tries her best to stop crying and looks at her hands grasped on top of the pillow. She tries to slow her breathing down. She hiccoughs, sniffs, tangles her fingers together. 

“Oh…” She feels Grace’s indecision, until the other woman closes the door and approaches her slowly. She sits down next to her, and reaches out wrapping a long arm around Dani’s slim shoulders, pulling her close. 

Dani doesn’t react for a moment, but the warmth, the unspoken support, the contact, _Grace_ , cracks something within her and the sobs return, emotions dredged from the pit of her stomach rising like bubbles, popping in her mind and creating a crescendo she can’t escape from. She turns, curls into Grace’s side and cries for her brother, her father, herself. 

Grace is the liferaft that she uses to survive the storm. She feels Grace’s other arm come around her, and after a while feels herself urged to lie down, clinging to Grace’s form like she’ll be swept away if she lets go. She feels soothing hands run up and down her back and murmured words of comfort penetrate her maelstrom of emotion, helping her brace against it. Eventually, eventually, she cries herself to sleep. 

*

When she wakes, she’s alone. She lies very still for a long time, feeling hollow, drained. She tunes back into the sounds of the house; there's Sarah grumbling about something in the kitchen, here's Grace shifting in the chair outside her door. Conversation. Movement. Normality. She gives herself a second to imagine that this is it; that there’s no more horror to come. She knows that’s a lie, though, and she turns onto her back on the bed, takes a deep breath, steels herself to keep going. She draws anger and strength around herself and slips it on like armour, keeping herself protected. She understands on a bone-deep level that she doesn't have time for tears anymore. 

It’s when she sits up that she notices: a small plastic cup on the bedside table, filled with a few wild flowers. 

She stares at them for a long moment, her mind a surprised blank, and reaches out slowly, tracing the petals of one carefully. They’re wildflowers, some might say weeds in more discernng circles, but to Dani, right then, they’re the most beautiful, unexpected things she’s ever seen. 

She plucks one out of the cup, brings it to her nose, and then tucks it into the breast pocket of her shirt, the head peeking out, and heads to the door. When she opens it, Grace is sat there, quiet and still, watchful and protective. 

“Grace,” She says, “You should have a nap too. Get a little more rest. You didn’t sleep much on the train.” 

Grace tries to demur, but then catches sight of the flower in Dani’s pocket, and looks away, and _that's_ where Dani has seen that expression before. “Maybe...Maybe I will,” she murmurs, pushing past Dani without meeting her eyes. Then she hesitates on the threshold of the room. Dani knows why, and she sits in Grace's chair. 

"I know," She looks up at Grace, "I'll be right outside - I won't be far away. You won't have far to go to protect me if something happens." She smiles, a small one, meant to be reassuring. 

Grace looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn't; her eyes roam Dani's face, and in her small returning smile and nod, Dani feels gentle gratitude. 

*

That night, she dreams of their first kiss. Well. Her first kiss with Grace. She hopes so desperately that it wasn’t also Grace’s first kiss with her. She doesn’t think it was, because looking back, her body was an instrument that Grace had clearly already learned to play . 

Their first kiss...it wasn’t...it wasn’t a moment of beauty, stolen from the jaws of terror. It wasn’t a life-affirming statement in a world suddenly full of death and destruction. It wasn’t a movie moment, soft and sweet and silvered in moonlight. It was grief, and confusion, and underneath all of that a passionate drive that swept her forward like a tsunami, uncontrollable but undeniable. 

The trek to the border wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t short. They had a night, there in the desert, before they reached the wall. She and Grace had managed to find some sort of equilibrium during the day, sharing space, sharing words, an ease of company developing, never too far apart. 

But, when night falls and they stop, sitting together, eating rations and re-grouping, Dani finds the flower in her pocket weighing her down, a presence she can’t ignore. She retrieves it and passes it between her fingers. 

“What you got there?” It’s Sarah who takes notice of her pre-occupation, and she puts it away too slowly. 

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Just a flower.” 

Sarah’s giving her A Look, and Dani can’t help but squirm slightly. Before she can answer, Grace mutters something about taking first watch, and she gets up and heads away from the group. Sarah is honestly looking like she might knock their heads together; like she just _cannot_ deal with them, but Dani's just watching Grace: something in Dani is just tugging her to follow.

Within the hour, the light fades, and they’re left in darkness. Sarah, her Uncle and their guide set out their sleeping bags, and she follows suit, but she knows she’s not going to sleep. She thinks - she’s a woman of action now, yes? She can do this. She waits until the breathing of the other three evens out, and then slowly and carefully eases her way out of the camp. 

Grace is positioned a little way away, on a small hillock with good visibility. She’s sitting on a rock, tracing the skyline with her eyes, making sure nothing escapes her notice, and even though Dani knows Grace _knows_ she’s coming, the augmented human from the future who will charge into battle with Terminators won’t meet her gaze. 

“Grace.” Dani whispers. She steps up to stand beside the other woman. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, not exactly, but when she looks at Grace’s face in profile, all blonde hair and blue eyes and pale skin, she knows she can’t not do it. “Please.” She’s reaching out, cupping Grace’s face and turning her head toward her. 

She realises the look on Grace’s face a second too late as a deep and abiding loss, and when their gazes meet, this time she does see tears. “I...I don't...I just...” Grace whispers, broken, searching Dani’s face for something she doesn’t seem to find before burying her head in her hands. And oh, oh, Dani is _such an idiot_. In all the time they've spent together, she hasn't thought to ask - what did Grace leave behind? 

“Oh, Grace, oh, I should have known...You had someone...? In, in the future?” She asks, pulling Grace’s hands away from her face. She doesn't wait for an answer before she drops to sit next to Grace, pulling the other woman into her arms, pulling Grace's head down to her shoulder, all the while murmuring soothing words in Spanish, rubbing her hand up and down Grace’s back. It’s a mirror of what Grace did for her just yesterday. 

Grace doesn’t speak at first, but then starts to sink into Dani. She tries to respond, but the response is fractured and Grace is too upset to re-frame it in clarity. "Yes..." She half-huffs a laugh, a broken, private joke that's coated in sadness, "But...no...it's..."

And she’s not crying, not quite, but her breaths aren’t even and her chest shakes. To Dani, it feels like she can't get enough comfort to Grace in this position, and without asking she drops into the space between Grace's knees, kneeling up as tall as she can, allowing the other woman to wrap her up in long arms, to bury her face in the crook of Dani's neck.

“Grace, I am so sorry.” Dani murmurs over her shoulder, hating herself for triggering this, hating whoever sent Grace back and made her leave her someone behind. “I’m so sorry. Of course...Of course, you would have someone, I-” 

She doesn’t get any further. Grace shudders, and makes an incomprehensible noise against her neck. The next thing Dani knows, Grace’s mouth is on hers. 

It’s firm and urgent, and Dani finds herself responding before she’s consciously aware of it, pushing forward into Grace, caught up in a whirlwind of emotion so sudden and strong she feels like her feet leave the ground. 

Grace takes her face in her hands and kisses her like she’s never been kissed, hard and passionate and full of need that bleeds out, stains her consciousness, blots out thought. It’s so much; too much. 

“Grace, wait.” She tries breathlessly when they break for air between kisses. Their foreheads are pressed together. 

With her face between Grace’s hands, she looks, truly looks at the other woman. There’s sadness and desperation and so much want plastered across Grace’s face that Dani doesn’t know how she missed it before, how she didn’t see it every time they had a moment to breath. She suddenly doesn’t want to know about anything except this moment; not the future, not future-robot-monsters, not anything but Grace's physical presence, pulling on her mind like gravity. She can see every speck of colour in Grace’s eyes, silver and shining in the moonlight, and she’s drowning. 

She places her hands over Grace’s at the side of her face. “Grace. _Please_.” 

Grace seems to understand what Dani needs, even if Dani isn't sure. She lets go of Dani’s face, reaches down and grasps her hips, lifting her onto her lap without an ounce of effort. It turns Dani on in a way that she didn’t know she could feel until it happens, flooding her system in an instant and blurring her thoughts. Dani’s knees settle on the rock either side of Grace’s hips, and her arms wind around Grace’s neck.

Grace’s hands, hesitantly at first, skim the skin where her shirt is riding up from her trousers. They stare at each other in the moonlight, and Dani traces Grace’s face with one hand, fingers skating along scar tissue, trailing across lips. The noise Grace makes is somewhere between a groan and a gasp, and she scoots forward, lowering them down to the floor in the same position with her back against the rock. Out of sight of the camp. 

Dani bites her lip and stares at Grace, stares in her eyes and at her mouth and back to her eyes. She gives in to her urges and leans forward and presses a soft kiss to the expanse of white skin at the juncture between shoulder and neck, and feels Grace shift, hand digging in to the small of Dani’s back. She drops kisses up to Grace’s jaw, along to her mouth, but hesitates just above Grace’s lips. She can feel Grace’s breath, fast, sharp, and the rhythmic flexing of her fingers on her back. 

“Grace...,” She doesn’t know how to frame what's she's trying to ask, because she’s never felt anything like this: She has to know that they’re in this together, that it’s not just her. 

“ _Dani_ ,” Her name is drawn from somewhere deep within Grace, and just like that, Dani _does_ know. 

She launches forward, pressing her mouth to Grace’s hard, kissing her with everything she has with her knees in the dirt of the desert and her hands in Grace’s hair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lag in posting.

Despite much of her last few years being structured around the minutiae of war - how do you build tanks in a world where infrastructure has broken down? How do you feed and clothe an army? - Dani hasn't forgotten that every soldier is vital, and that at her core, she is the original soldier of this fight. So, despite the protestations of her leadership team, she has a well worn set of body armour and a favourite gun that sees more use than they're happy with. It’ll see use now.

This particular situation started when they’d had intel on a Machine facility operating out of the business district of a nearby city - something they could go in, shut down, and get a victory for their efforts. But, when she’d sent her best recon squad to scope out the truth of this, they’d been surrounded by Machine forces and stranded in the very location they’d been sent to investigate. Now, they're unable to make their way home; the machines have them hemmed in, pinned down and cut off. 

A recon mission has become a rescue, and Dani's riding in one of four armoured air-drop vehicles because she refused not to be a part of this when it was her orders that got them there in the first place. 

Once they - HQ - had realised what had happened, she’d begun work on a rescue plan - the plan they’re affecting now, a tactical strike to punch through the Machine offensive and pull out the stranded soldiers. These machines, they're not quite at the level of the Rev-9 yet, but if she thinks as if they are - if she asks herself, what would _that_ machine do - she can plan for every eventuality. So plan she did, and now she's flying in a convoy on the way to rescue their soldiers from certain death.

Because that's what it will be, if they can't get them out. She's met a Machine before that could think and reason and that attempted to negotiate a life for a life, but the machines here are implacable and reason-less, cold metal shielding cold intention. They do not stop, they do not hesitate, do not negotiate, and the only way to stop them is to take them to pieces.

To that end, as the Machines have evolved over the years, so have the weapons the humans use to fight them, and she holds a Mag15 EMP tracer rifle - a gun capable of blowing a hole in a machine and delivering electrically charged ordinance into its guts, its brains. She had a hand in the original design of the Mag1 - she's big on EMPs of any kind these days. She also has a small shotgun strapped to her thigh, archaic and out of place, but she refuses to leave home without it. Tracing the worn grip, she settles back in her seat as they speed high above the cracked and broken highway.

Resting her fingers on the shotgun, she closes her eyes for just a moment. It helps centre her if she takes a millisecond before the shit hits the fan: to pray, to cycle through the plan one more time, to look at their situation from every angle for weakness. To remind herself of her fuel, to _remember_ , just for a moment, her reasons for fighting. 

*

They stay up long into the night, kissing with fevered intensity at first. Eventually, though, it slows. It transforms. It transmutes into something Dani hasn’t experienced before - an evolution into communication, emotions writ in lips and tongue and touch that she’s using to try to express something she doesn't have the words for yet. Each kiss is a statement, punctuated by a touch, a smile. It’s soft and slow; by now their lips are sore, their cheeks stiff with movement, yet they cannot bring themselves to stop. 

The cool desert air cocoons them in a false illusion of privacy, but at a certain point, she shivers. Grace pulls away from kissing with difficulty, but then fishes an over-large hoodie out from her pack, and almost laughs as Dani slips it on, swimming in the thick material. Grace rubs Dani's arms to generate warmth, half-smiling, until they lock eyes again; it's like magnetism, this thing between them, and Grace's hands slow as though she cannot co-ordinate limbs properly while caught in Dani's gaze.

Eventually, the sunrise starts to turn the eastern sky orange, brightness creeping along the desert floor and wreathing the two of them in slowly developing pools of colour. Instead of watching the light uncover the landscape, Dani watches it uncover Grace - her face, her eyes, her scars - and at every new level of illumination, she can suddenly pick out new details that fascinate and delight; that bring her a fierce, deep joy as she watches this woman come to life under the sun. Dani feels like she's learning something new about the woman in front of her in every second, from the tone of her skin to the shades of gold in her hair. Each new level of light - each new thing she can see - is a revelation: a freckle here, a tiny, worn, scar there - and she's absorbed, entranced, tracing things as she sees them, dropping kisses on each one. 

Grace is seemingly entirely content to let her continue this discovery, running her hands up and down Dani's back. Dani doesn't think she'll ever stop, doesn't think she'll be able to give up Grace's mouth, her skin...Right up until she hears a cough and realises Sarah's standing over them, holding her shotgun, her eyebrows travelling to her hairline, her eyes obtuse behind the sunglasses.

"Oh...Oh!" Despite embarrassment and shock, Dani's slow to leave Grace's warmth. "Sarah..."

"The others aren't up yet. Unless you want to have some...interesting discussions with your Uncle on the way to the border, I suggest you make yourselves..." An eyebrow twitches. "...Presentable." 

And with that Sarah's gone. Dani stands, mouth slightly agape, watching her go with her mind a blank, before she remembers where they are and what they're doing. She panics; tucks in her shirt, smooths down her hair, finds the wildflower is miraculously still in her pocket and relatively unharmed and...remembers Grace.

She looks down - Grace has the back of her hand to her mouth, resting the elbow on a cocked knee as she leans back against their rock, studying her through half-closed eyes, and Dani can see the smallest hint of a smile on the lips that peek out from behind her fingers.

It's the closest she's ever seen Grace to looking content. "What?" She asks.

But Grace shakes her head, standing quickly, and smoothing down her hair, looking presentable in about thirty seconds. "Nothing...You just...reminded me of something. Come on, let's go back to the others."

*

Dani feels...different. Like she's rested, even though she hasn't. More centred. Grace even seems a little looser, a little less wound up. They travel close together. They say less, but coordinate more, needing little more than a glance or a gesture to communicate.

It almost feels good, until Grace spots the drone.

It's clearly following them, and it puts everything back in sharp perspective. Dani feels like she’s had a break from running on pure adrenalin, an undeserved moment of peace amid the madness...but now, the break is over. 

They speed up, covering more ground, reaching a river-crossing as night falls. Everyone's on edge; they travel as a tightly contained unit, guns out, senses on high alert.

Everything happens so fast once they land on the other side of the river: it's a blur, and emotionally, it’s a rollercoaster. They're at the wall, then they're underneath it. Dani feels a rush of hope as they climb out into the darkness of the other side - _they’ve made it!_ \- until that darkness is split by headlights, pinning them down as effectively as rope. The hope that had tentatively spread within her leaves her; she’s drained, crushed, her head spinning.

It's worse, oddly, once she realises it’s not the Terminator that’s caught them. Then, being caught in the headlights hits her hard, really hard - it's the worst nightmare of anyone trying to make the crossing. She's been immersed in stories of this happening for years - stories that have settled into her country's bones, become as terrifying as any mythological boogeyman, conditioning a country to fear this exact situation. To disappear into one of these ‘centers'...Dani can’t find the words for the dread, the sickness that expands in her belly, making her eyes water, her limbs weak.

She can feel the fear paralysing her, inhabiting every inch of her. This is _real_ and _immediate_ \- so many people she knows have lost someone into this system, and now she's faced with its enforcers. Faced with the reality of it. It jellies her knees and steals her breath. 

It's then, glancing back at Grace for comfort, that she notices her expression. She’s seen that look in her eyes, the set of her jaw, before...and before she knows it, she's raising her hands, acquiescing to her worst fear before she’ll let Grace go down in a blaze of glory. She can't believe she's doing it, wilfully submitting to this situation, but put Grace in harms way...? She can't. 

"They can shoot me," she glances back and meets Grace's eyes, knows she's giving too much away, "But I will not watch you die."

*  
What happens next is fractured: a series of mental stills lit by the bloom of exploding vehicles, memories strobing through her mind with vivid intensity. The drone strike. Grace saving her, pushing her from the blast radius. Grace caught herself, tumbling like a rag-doll in the blast. Dani tries to reach her but the Border force are on them now. She's held down. Her ears ring. The fire rages. She can't see Grace, and she panics, struggles. She's pressed into the dirt with such force she feels like she can't breathe. The heat from the burning vehicles is fierce.

Even Sarah can do nothing as they're man-handled into cars. Dani twists, desperate, in the back seat, and the last thing she sees is Grace being stretchered into a vehicle, before they’re too far away to see any more. 

*

The detention centre is worse than Dani could have imagined. What hits her first and leaves the biggest impression is the smell: caged, unwashed humanity, desperate and soiled and closed in. Then, it's the toilets in the cages, viewable not only by the people in her own cage but by all the neighbouring cages. No way to wash hands. Zero privacy. Zero hygiene. It's like nothing she's ever experienced, like the place is designed to reduce humanity to the experience of a caged hen.

As they’re taking her to a cage, she tries to explain the situation; tries, desperately, to get someone, anyone to understand the danger they’re in holding her there, but everyone she speaks to dismisses her as crazy, or seems to think she's making some sort of veiled threat - the response she gets there makes her afraid to speak, the dark promise of solitary, of disappearance dangled before her - but she keeps trying. She can see, in the bored eyes of the last official she tries to convince, the futility of her position; how, here and now, she's not Dani Ramos, she's a prisoner of no consequence, another story in a sea of stories, a person reduced to nothing more than breakroom chatter - _did you hear the one about the mechanical robots from the future?_ \- her words unheard by ears inured to pleas and bargaining. 

The one bright spot is Sarah, pacing like a lion in the cage across the walkway, and she's planning something - Dani can tell by the calculating look on her face. Sure enough, she somehow convinces several other detainees to shield her as she starts work on the lock of her cage - how, Dani doesn't know, they look like hardened veterans of this system, but somehow Sarah talks them into it. Dani has no doubt that Sarah, now, is a part of her team, integral, just like Grace. And oh, she...she can't think of Grace injured. She has to _believe_ that she's okay. 

Dani's laser-focused on Sarah, but still picks up on movement at the end of the hall. Her first thought is _Terminator!_ and her heart thumps painfully, but it's someone who's dress and mannerisms scream ‘middle management' as opposed to ‘future-murder-robot', and Dani feels herself relax a touch until he calls out for Sarah, clearly overjoyed at having a ‘celebrity' appear on his watch. It occurs to Dani - could it be the Rev-9? But no. He'd come after her, no question, not Sarah. Maybe, then, Sarah wasn't lying about being as wanted as she clearly is.

Dani watches, horrified, frozen, as Sarah's cage is opened, as she's spoken to by the young agent and they start to coral her out into the walkway. They lock eyes - under her bluster and bravado, she can see that Sarah is scared for her, scared to leave her, that there's even apology under all the anger, but it's gone in a flash as she's handcuffed and led away.

And now, for the first time since the start of the nightmare, she's alone. Really, truly alone. Trapped in a terrifying place, and waiting for death dealt by a Machine from a future she’s supposed to save. She does the only thing she can, in that moment. 

She prays.

*

She has her eyes closed as the transport moves, one hand on the butt of the shotgun, the other resting on the rifle clipped to her chest. She thinks about the detention centre often in these moments, thinks: _when we win, I will build a better world_. it's one of the memories she uses to drive her to win at all costs.

"Commander," It's the pilot, crackly over the headphones they're both wearing. "We're here."

"Set us down." _Here_ is the minimum safe distance they can land and not be immediately swarmed by foes; _here_ is where the rescue mission really starts.

She turns in her seat, eyes the assembled soldiery before her, looks for fear and doubt and finds only belief and trust. 

"Soldiers!" She starts, un-doing her seat-belt and standing, getting their attention as the craft touches down. "We are here to save lives. I know that you'll do whatever you can to see our brave men and women back with us, back with you, back home and _safe_!"

The soldiers cheer, and Dani nods. "No mistakes! No heroes! Everybody comes home!"

They cheer louder, and then they're piling out of the air-transports, separating into squads and formations that Dani's designed, through streets she's studied until she can name them all, heading toward their lost men.

They're an arrowhead, backed by ground and air support, to punch through the Machine line, gather the wounded, make enough space for evac and then get the hell out. It's a good plan, a solid plan, but like every time she puts people in harm's way, Dani prays it'll be good _enough_.

*  
It’s always odd, being on the ground in a city she visited pre-JD. The world looks nothing and everything like disaster flicks told her it would. The buildings are worn and torn, but not _every_ building. Not every building has taken damage, and the suburbs they work through now are more damaged by plant-growth and neglect than war. Apocalypse media told her that the world would be grey; grey skies, grey clothes, grey food. Now, she’s wishing for cloud cover, as the sun shines bright and hard in a sky toned a brilliant blue, and goddamit their air support is going to be seen from a mile away. 

They’ve landed in the suburbs to make their approach to the city proper, and soon they’re travelling under freeways, seeing buildings higher than two stories grow around them like ruined mushrooms, because here the damage is _much_ more pronounced. Abandoned cars litter city streets, broken glass and brick make sidewalks minefields of twisted ankles and potential injuries. Sometimes Dani will see something she recognises - a store-front, a monument, a street corner - and memory will overlay reality for just a moment, reminding her of the world they once had. 

They make contact within thirty minutes of entering the business district, the sharp _praprapraprap_ of a Mag11 (older, but arguably more reliable) reverberating through ruined buildings to their left as another squad encounters the enemy. Dani's squad tightens formation, scanning the nearby buildings. It's sooner than anticipated, and Dani's hesitant to call air support yet but the damn Machines will be swarming in seconds, and she has to make a call.

So she does. She calls for the air support, and forces speed into the booted feet around her, accelerating their push through the streets, sacrificing silence for speed. Their main focus is getting the heavy armaments - carried by two members of each squad - to the Machine line so they can make space for their tanks. Dani makes sure to stick close to her two, ready to defend them. 

She can feel the sweat start to bead, start to stick her shirt to her back, feel her heart-beat in her fingertips and ears, feel her bladder press insistently. She ignores it all.

It’s not long before they hear the high whine in the air around them; drones, mini-Hunter Killers dancing through the air, dropping in on their location. Dani’s first shot sends one wide, blasting it’s propulsion system, but there are seven more descending. 

“Move!” She commands, pushing the soldiers in-front of her into a jog, providing cover fire. She tags another, and another, but it’s not enough, and then the wall to her left explodes as a Rev-1 launches through it, showering them in brickwork and dust. 

Fast and deadly, the Rev-1’s are what she’s called the first model in which she can see an echo of the Rev-9, in its speed and precision. It doesn’t have the fluid nano-skeleton of the future model, not yet, but there are hints that it’s coming in its weaponry, its viciousness. 

She takes aim at its Machine skull and fires, but it’s quick and the brick dust is in her eyes. “Converge fire!” She calls. “Rev! Rev on the field!” 

The mini-HK’s can’t be forgotten, not when they can rain down fire on the tightly packed soldiers, but people listen - the Rev is clouded in tracer fire in seconds. They’re scoring hits, but not well enough - EMP ammunition doesn’t mean shit if it doesn’t hit something _crucial_.

It’s not enough - never seems like enough out here in the field - and it’s charging them. They’re moving backward across the terrain quickly and efficiently, but the Rev is fast and is armed with a gun on one side, shooting with calculated precision. Dani never gets used to the fear that spikes when a Machine is _comingcomingcoming_ and she can see that fear in the soldiers around her: it helps that they’re with her. The Commander. 

They’re getting in hits, nearly at the safety of a nearby building, when the soldier next to her takes a hit from the Rev, dropping with sickening swiftness onto the glass laden sidewalk. 

“You fucker!” She spits at it, this monster of metal and machinery. Everyone behind her is speeding up but now...she’s slowing down. She’s got this. She’s wrapped in the cold calculating fury that overtakes her sometimes; the feeling that right now, right this second, the Machine's will not take an _inch_ more. She's been told before - acting like this...it's reckless. It's insane. But everyone has their line in the sand, and whenever a Machine puts a toe over hers...she can't not do everything in her power to stop it. 

She kneels, takes aim, takes a deep breath and _focuses_. Her first shot takes it in the chin and it’s still sprinting, still coming, she’s running out of time and its raising its gun again until BANG, her second shot takes it clean through the eye and it’s tumbling tumbling toward her as the EMP ammunition detonates and fries its brain, it’s momentum sending in careening into a heap at her feet. 

Her breath is short. She has to take a moment before she can stand, her legs wobbly with adrenalin, but when she does, she sees the looks on the soldiers behind her, sees their awe, their horror at how close she came to being Machine-fodder. She kneels down next to the soldier at her side, check vitals, checks limbs and chest for injuries. It's a tidal wave of relief when she sees that she’s okay, only winded, that her armour did its job. She feels justified; she feels an expansion in her chest, a feeling that fills her, lightens her: she saved someone. She helps the soldier to her feet, claps her on the shoulder, sends her back to the squad.

She turns her head in the direction they need to move and scans the streets. No new Machines yet. “Keep moving!” She yells, and the soldiers obey.


	5. Chapter 5

They’re almost there, speeding through streets now empty of Machine presence save old carcasses from previous battles. Their tanks are following at a safe distance, and air support has eyes in the sky, and so far...nothing on the radar, no more resistance. 

They stop at the edge of a plaza, eyeing their target: The building their soldiers are located in is - was - a tower of mirrored glass, a monument to capitalism. It probably would have been a sight before the war, but half the glass is missing or crazed with cracks and the fountain in the courtyard is broken. Now, the building is ringed by tracked Machines. These are mini-tanks, about the size of a small Jeep, with rotating turrets. They call them Destroyers: they pack a hell of a punch from their large calibre guns and can swarm opponents surprisingly fast. It’s these guys they’re here to break through, and Dani gives the signal to prepare to attack. She takes a moment to scan the sky, but she can't see any Machine support, and her air support aren't reporting further resistance. That surprises her, and a current of worry circles in her stomach, but she doesn't have time to think further - they need to move. Her squads are ready: the designated soldiers carrying the rocket launchers have taken their positions at key points around the plaza, having snuck through side-streets and alleys undetected. She waits, just a moment, studying the scene one more time, and then gives the 'Go'.

A coordinated assault, perfectly timed from all quarters, punches through the barricade of Machine resistance. Destroyers explode under the barrage, and the ones that're left are targeted by tanks - now safe to roll into the fray - before they can gather to respond. Now that the numbers are more even, the tanks can plough forward, engaging them while the ground forces sprint for the entrance of the target building. She's glad - so glad - to see that there are surviving soldiers in there, evidenced by the covering fire that erupts from it as they approach. 

She’s first through the breach, desperate to get in, pushing through the entrance barricaded by the lost squad, barking “Sit-rep!": they don’t have a lot of time before the machines re-group, and she needs to know how many wounded they have to deal with. 

“Seventy percent of the squads are mobile; we have three soldiers with severe injuries, and three losses, sir!” A voice calls out...and Dani’s throat closes, she feels her sweat-slicked grip loosen on her gun for just a second because - No. _No_. This isn't Grace's squadron... _she’s not supposed to be here_. She turns, and sure enough, Grace is kneeling next to an injured comrade. As soon as Grace sees her, however, she rockets to her feet so fast she sways, face pale under dirt and blood. 

“Thank you, solider!” Is all she can manage, clenching her fists, resisting the urge to reach out and make sure Grace is real. She's felt that urge before, and the emotion rushes in as vividly and as over-whelming as it did the first time, only now, she doesn't have the luxury to indulge it. 

*

In the cage, Dani sees the Terminator before he sees her. He’s stalking around the outside of the holding area, peering into cells, examining anyone who looks like they might fit her physical description. 

She’s got nothing and no-one - as soon as he sees her, she’s done. She knows this, but now, in this moment she resolves: she won’t go down without a fight. She’ll punch and kick and scream and she _won’t make it easy_. 

She’s breathing hard, readying herself, coming to terms with the situation...when the fire alarm goes off, throwing the room into chaos. It doesn't take long before people are screaming, pulling at the cages, fear leaping from person to person like a virus. Dani is desperately looking around, hoping, _praying_ , and then... _there!_...a blonde head working it's way through the crowds, yanking open the cage doors with inhuman strength. Her cage door is opening and oh, oh! It’s Grace. She knows they don't have time, she knows they have to run, but she can’t help but reach out, to touch, to make sure it’s really her, to make sure she's not a dream. Her hands touch hot, slightly sweaty skin; then Grace is imploring her to run. There's screaming and panic all around her but for just a moment, everything is okay because Grace is _here_. 

*

In the here and now, Dani doesn’t have time to focus on her, however much she might wish to, and she no longer has the luxury she once had: of centring herself on Grace before throwing herself into the next situation. What she does have now - what she can do to calm her racing heart - is the ability to order her to safety. "When the shuttles come, I want you on the first one; get these injured out," She says, and it's couched as though it's for the injured service personal. It is - she trusts Grace to get them out - and yet...it isn't. It's the only thing she can do in the circumstances, and it will have to do. 

She liaises with the highest ranking surviving officer, Lieutenant Diaz, and gets the quick version of their situation. She's surprised they're in as good shape as they are, and he agrees - he expected all out assault after they were funnelled into the building, but the Machines seemed content to corral them like cattle. Something doesn't sit right with her: the more she finds out about this situation, the less she likes it. Something in her chest is telling her to get them out now, immediately, because she can feel her instincts screaming in the background that this situation is rapidly going south even though, on the surface, it's textbook so far. 

She allows Diaz to steady his men, getting them up and ready as quickly as humanly possible -“Get ready to go home! Get the injured ready to move! Get ready for evac!” - while she liaises with her evac team. They’d calculated the number of fast, agile, but less armoured transports required on the maximum number of possible soldiers but there have been losses on both the team being rescued and the team rescuing, and some of those spaces will be heartrendingly empty. Dani tries not to think about that. 

They have one goal now - to get their people home, and Dani isn’t going to let them down. She can’t. 

She rushes to the front of the building in time to see their tanks taking position, bulldozing Machine wreckage out of the way to create a landing zone. The street is too quiet - Machine reinforcements haven't materialised. The dread in her stomach grows. 

“Take positions!” She radios to her squadrons, and they follow orders, heading to pre-decided locations to help cover the retreat. Some head for the upper floors here, precision rifles in tow; some head for neighbouring buildings to provide elevated cover fire. The rest follow her outside, ready to reinforce the safe zone. 

They’re primed, and she’s ready. Teams are in position. Despite - because of - her dread, she can't wait any longer and she calls for the evacuation to begin. Within minutes, the first shuttle arrives, escorted by air support, lowering down into the landing zone while they ring the area, weapons hot. The wounded are going first, and they leave the building, limping and supported or carried to safety, surrounded by a guard of soldiers. 

And _that’s_ when the Machines attack. It’s vicious and immediate and it has a word - _ambush_. Hunter Killers - the big Daddy versions, not the scouts - lift from the ruins of nearby buildings and she can suddenly hear the tell-tale rumble of Destroyers nearby, but the worst thing..the worst thing is the thing one of the HK’s drop from its undercarriage, a crate sized machine, folded in on itself for a safe landing, slamming into the street below with enough force to crack ancient tarmac. 

Fuck. It’s a new model, and that’s the one thing she fears above everything on the field - a new model that she doesn’t know, that she can’t predict, doesn’t know the weaknesses of. The HKs are engaging with air support, the destroyers with the tanks and the new model is left to pick its own targets. Suddenly, she _gets_ it, gets this whole mess, and her blood feels like it's freezing in her veins. This is an _experiment_. Legion has iterated a new model, and it needed a...test run. This is what Legion does - it gathers data, it re-builds, re-evolves, it tests, and today...they are the white mice caught in the maze. The horror she feels at herself - she should have _known_ that something wasn't right as soon as they got here- is only eclipsed by the horror she feels for this new death dealer, readying itself in the ruined city street.

It unfolds to stand upright, a parody of human movement in its mechanical limbs and turns its red eyes this way and that across the battlefield. Dani can see a calculation, an _intention_ in it that early models lack. It's studying the battlefield - the landing zone, the squads in the surrounding buildings providing cover fire, the tanks - before leaping into movement, disappearing into one of the nearby buildings from which their cover fire emanates. It’s fast, faster than a Rev-1, and she doesn't have time to fire off more than a short warning before she sees the cover fire stop, hears the fire be directed inward at the new threat. 

She has no choice - they have to get out, have to keep going. She's in the middle of the landing zone, firing at the HK's, directing ground fire at the Destroyers and the older ground models that are appearing from alleys and side-streets when the new model bursts out of a third story window, landing unharmed and sprinting across the road into the opposite building in a show of Machine strength that leaves Dani fearful. She makes the call - the cover fire teams must leave their buildings and regroup on her, now, before it finds them, but she’s already hearing static from two of the squads, and that causes rage and grief to expand beneath her sternum. 

“Go, go, go!” The first transport is almost full, and the soldiers re-double their effort to get the remaining survivors on board and away. Finally, the shuttle lifts off, doing its best to avoid any heavy fire and jinking left to right; by a miracle, it survives, and the second shuttle braves the fire zone to drop in and start taking aboard passengers. Dani watches the first one go, and breathes a little easier now that Grace is safe.

They’re now in a dangerous position - the more people they evacuate, the less fire-power they have on the ground, the less defence they have to actively protect evacuees. Dani thinks they can get this transport away, but the third? She doesn’t know. She replies in the negative to the repeated entreaties by her officers in the field that she get in the second transport, and focuses her mind on the enemy, tries to find her cold, calculating certainty but she's not there yet.

She re-doubles her efforts, re-co-ordinates the tank strikes, and they’re lucky - the Destroyers are down, but HK’s are harder to hit, and there’s still some smaller ground forces to deal with. What’s worse - less and less of her squads are making it out the buildings around them, and her bile rises - they don’t have the time or the man-power to save them, to hunt down this new machine, and she knows it. It burns, burns her up as she fights, but she can't give in to it, not yet. 

This is it. The second shuttle gets away - barely - and this is it, the moment that defines whether the rescue operation is a success or a failure, whether they can save everyone possible or not. She’s sprinting between tanks, knocking on hatches, screaming at people to put their vehicles on Auto-Defence and get out - they're not getting those vehicles out of this mess. 

By a miracle the third transport lands. She thinks they’re going to make it, she does, and an officer is shouting for her - but it's not enough...there should be more coming from the buildings, should be way more, and she can't...she just can't believe they're all gone. she’s the last one, the last one with boots on the ground, but dammit…maybe if they give it a few more minutes….

“Commander!” It’s the pilot, voice sharp with fear. “We have to go!” 

And she knows it’s true, she does, but she won’t leave a man behind if she can help it, and fuckfuck _fuck_ she doesn’t want to think about those bodies in those buildings. She's scanning the buildings around them, taking slow step back toward the transport, while praying for movement and...there! Someone running! It's a lone soldier, sprinting with his head down, running for all he's worth. She won't leave him, she won't. 

She’s firing and firing, trying to buy him a single second more, but the new model...it appears like a fucking shadow behind him and it's on him before he can pass their line of tanks, leaping, landing on his back and breaking his spine with its weight. Dani can hear herself throwing insults in Spanish like weapons, such is the passion behind them, and she's firing, unclipping grenades, throwing everything she can at the thing. It doesn't seem to make a dent, and the next thing she knows strong arms are around her, dragging her backward, and she’s on the shuttle: someone’s screaming, “Go! For fucks sake, go!”

The vehicle lifts off with a speed that surprises everyone and Dani stumbles, grabbing the side of the door. She's panting, and once she finds her feet, she's still firing through the open door of the shuttle. They’re rising through smoke and ruins and just a little further, _just a little further…_

The new model hits the side of the shuttle with a sound like it’s ripped off half the plating, pinning itself in place with two blades that tear through the side of the vehicle with distressing ease. The vehicle lists as the pilot tries desperately to compensate and Dani tips; she almost falls out if not for a strong grip on her vest, pulling her back in with fierce strength, landing her in tangle of arms and legs with the soldier that saves her. 

“Commander!…Dani!” It’s Grace, holding her, saving her time and time again. There’s no time to acknowledge that though, not as the new model swings into the open doorway, black exoskeleton gleaming against the blue sky, singular, awful purpose in every movement of metal and joint. It’s silhouetted as it raises it’s blades, but Dani isn’t going to lose anyone else, not today. She gets to her feet. The machine is swinging but she's sliding under the blow. Before the machine can react, she's rising like a vengeful spirit, her old shotgun resting under its chin. There’s a stillness coating the moment as her perception of time slows down. 

“Not today,” she whispers. Then she blows the fucking thing out into the blue, blue sky. 

*

There's a moment of silence. Dani's suddenly aware she's on the very edge of the open doorway, and she scrambles backward. She lets her shotgun drop, clattering to the ground. There’s not that many soldiers on the shuttle, a fact she’s glad of as she slumps into herself, backing away further from the still open side of the drop-ship. 

She turns, and every person on the ship - including the pilot, turned in his seat - is staring. “Get us home, soldier.” She orders, and the pilot swallows and jerks back to face the front. “Get us home.” 

Grace moves over to her, hands hovering over her elbow but not touching. “Da…Commander…Are you alright?”

With anyone else, Dani would wave them away. With Grace - especially after their last encounter - she can’t bring herself to, so she lets Grace shadow her to a chair. 

"...Fine. I'm fine." She says, sitting down, strapping herself in with slow, deliberate motions, avoiding Grace's eyes.

She isn’t. Not really. They - she - fell for a Machine ambush that has left too many people dead. She has to find out how, where the Intel came from, what that new model is…but all that can wait until they get back to base. Until then, she’s sitting watching a cloud-studded sky, with Grace sitting beside her, and she’s...fine. But there’s still the matter of why Grace was there to begin with.

"They had spaces. I volunteered." Is all Grace says when she asks, and of course she did - Grace wants to help, she's a good soldier, a good person, and she saw a chance to do something. That tracks, and she can't be angry about it.

"You were supposed to be on the first shuttle.” Is the next thing out of her mouth. She wants to be angry, because she's so scared to know that Grace stayed on the ground, but she doesn't have the energy. 

Grace looks at her boots, fiddles slightly with her gun. "I..." She stares out into the blue, searching for words, until finally she shrugs, exhausted. "You stayed. I stayed." 

It's a simple statement that lands in Dani's chest, her heart, with a weighted meaning that stills her fear and anger, clears her mind and settles her. It's a declaration of trust, of support and of loyalty that fills Dani with something approaching awe. She turns away from Grace and stares at the clouds to give herself a moment.

Grace is silent for a long while as they head closer and closer to home, and then Dani hears her say, “You know, we’re still having that drink tonight...” 

Dani can’t help it - even after everything, Grace still has the cojones to bring that up and...she smiles, and the smile turns into a laugh, relief pouring out of her with every breath. They're both alive, and for now, that's _everything_.


	6. Chapter 6

They get back to base without incident, racing through sunbright city streets, taking a non-direct route. Dani lets the other soldiers disembark first, and without being asked, Grace waits with her. As they’re exiting the shuttle, standing on the concrete floor of the hanger, she can’t help herself. She reaches out, places a hand on Grace’s forearm. “...Grace…” Those blue eyes are pinning her in place. “Thank you. For saving me.” 

It’s hard to say, even to Grace - she’s supposed to be the one person who doesn’t need it. Grace puts her hand on top of Dani’s and smiles, “Thank _you_. If you hadn’t done what you did there...we would have…” Grace swallows, the reality of the situation apparently hitting home now they're back in safety's arms.

They’re stood together in the shadow of the evac shuttle, a silence developing between them that feels comfortable, tying them together in discreet companionship. It takes the pilot leaving the vehicle, hopping to the hanger floor, to shake them out of it. Dani shakes herself, breaks Grace’s gaze, takes a step back. “Corporal. Get some rest.” It’s a dismissal, but she’s smiling. 

Grace nods, also smiling. “About that drink...? Tomorrow?” She’s teasing, hopeful. 

Dani chuckles, but it drops into a sigh. Just like that, Dani is left behind, and the Commander answers. “Grace...I’m sorry. I can’t. It’s not...appropriate.”

Grace smiles slightly, thinking it’s banter, until the undercurrent of finality in Dani’s tone catches her attention. Her expression shutters, flicking between emotions, settling on rejection. She straightens up, and Dani desperately wants to mitigate the statement, offer an alternative, but they’re both exhausted, hurt and not thinking clearly, and she can only salute back when Grace salutes, turns on her heel and leaves. 

Dani stares, watching her go, before she gathers herself and straightens, taking a deep breath. She feels a flicker of frustration; she just needs Grace to understand that she’s not always able to be simply _Dani_. 

*

She only allows the exhaustion to hit when she’s safely back in her rooms, barely removing her boots before lying back on the made bed, stretched out on top of the covers. She’s asleep before she realises it, and deep into dreaming in what feels like seconds. 

*

The escape from the detention centre happens in dream-time, speeding her through the experience. They make it to a helicopter, but there’s no sign of Sarah, and Dani’s panicking. Sarah is part of this, and she needs to know she’s safe. And then, liked an answered prayer, there she is, racing across the open ground. It’s not enough - the Rev-9 is here, it’s fast, she won’t make it. Grace is powering up the helicopter, and Dani can't quite believe it but it’s lifting off the concrete. 

_No_. Dani can’t help herself, she’s down and on the ground, and Grace is horrified, reversing the helicopters motion. She's firing a gun with a confidence she doesn’t feel because she has to give Sarah _time_. It works, barely, and Sarah takes the gun as she pushes Dani into the helicopter. As they lift off, Sarah fires with practised precision and the Rev-9 drops, staring at them. Dani knows it doesn’t feel, but it sure looks to her like it hates them in that moment. 

The helicopter gains speed, powering away across the desert. Despite the odds, the three of them are still a ‘We’, and they’re still alive. 

*

They travel for hours. Dani thinks Grace must be getting tired, but her focus is fixed on the landscape and the navigational instruments on the dashboard, jaw tensed, not speaking. 

None of them have spoken, really, since Grace and Sarah agreeing that Dani’s too important to risk herself. Dani’s self-worth is telling her that that can’t be true - that she’s not important enough to be, well, important. Her whole life, everything around her has told her that she can have self-belief and power...but never as much as some other types of people. Although she doesn't realise it, she actually takes a perverse comfort in the fact that it’s her womb, more than her, that’s important here; sub-consciously, that feeds into her conditioning, challenges less of it. 

Still, she’s smarting, and the other two can sense it, have retreated. She can see, in Sarah’s crossed arms and seemingly bored gaze, a resistance to talking about anything. She can see, in Grace’s tense shoulders and turned down lips, a desire not to talk about the future, and she feels lost, feels like she’s desperate for more guidance than she has. 

But...Despite this, despite the tension between her and Grace, all she really wants to do is to curl up with Grace and sleep, to feel the comforting closeness of the other woman’s body, to absorb the strength to continue from someone who has an abundance of it. Instead, they’re racing over a tar dark landscapes toward mysterious coordinates that may or may not provide them with the safety Grace so desperately wishes for her. 

The sun rises, illuminating the changing ground below them that's transforming from desert to farmland to forest in way that’s fascinating to observe from this high up, the ground rolling underneath them like water, changing and transforming. Giving up on the idea of forcing conversation, Dani loses herself in watching it pass, caught in the hypnotic flow of the earth below. 

Before too much longer though, they’re landing, dropping through a gap in the trees so small that Dani doesn’t know how Grace negotiates the space, and every muscle she has is tensing hard until helicopter skids meet leaf mold. 

It’s nice to be on solid ground again, and she stretches, taking a deep breath of the forest air, before they’re arming themselves and heading toward their destination - what turns out to be a lone cabin in the woods. 

Dani thinks it’s odd, to live so remotely, and can’t help but draw parallels to their situation from...well, every horror movie she’s ever watched, increasingly keyed into her fear as they approach the quiet home. Outside is a van - Carl’s Draperies stencilled on the side - and it looks like the kind of van Dani can imagined getting snatched in. That thought doesn’t help her feelings of unease as they approach, and she almost changes her mind, almost asks the other women to stop. 

The truth, as it turns out, is much weirder than ‘murderer in the woods’. When ‘Carl’ opens the door, Sarah reacts with such hatred Dani’s taken aback, until it becomes clear that what's before them isn’t a ‘Carl’. This is a killing machine from a future that never happened, and the assassin of Sarah Connor’s child. 

It’s so much information to take on-board so fast that Dani reels, can’t collect her thoughts for a minute, and her heart is going out to Sarah, who looks like a wound so deep in her has been re-opened, grief pouring out and staining the ground around her. If Dani is feeling the vertigo of this moment, what the hell must she be feeling?

Grace takes charge, a fact for which Dani is grateful, ushering ‘Carl’ back inside while Sarah disappears into the surrounding woodland. Dani watches her go, and then they exchange a glance, she and Grace, and she understands what Grace is asking. She nods - she’ll go after Sarah. She feels like it’s her fault, anyway, that Sarah’s been confronted with this horrific reminder of her past with no warning, no chance to prepare - if not for her, Sarah wouldn’t be here. It’s her responsibility to fix this. 

It doesn’t take her long to find the older woman. She’s slumped on a log, and she looks like an abandoned puppet, body devoid of purpose or function, eyes empty of anything but a grief so all encompassing Dani can’t fathom it. Her heart breaks, slowly and agonisingly, as she understands some of Sarah’s pain from the position of her body, the look in her eyes. She’s trying to think of something, anything to say, because ‘Are you alright?’ seems so pitifully, woefully inadequate, when Sarah speaks. 

“I don’t have a picture of him,” She says, and the despair in her voice breaks Dani’s heart _again_. “I thought...if they didn’t know what he looked like…” She sighs, swallows, gathers herself to continue. “They wouldn’t be able to find him.”

Now, she looks up, and oh, the agony in those eyes. It lances through Dani like a sword, cutting her through the chest, opening her up to an empathetic understanding of Sarah’s grief, and the understanding alone threatens to swallow her whole; how the hell Sarah’s still talking, walking, functioning, Dani doesn’t know. She sits without asking, wraps one arm around Sarah, knows now that she doesn’t have to say anything because there’s nothing she can say. 

“And now…” There are tears in Sarah’s eyes, and she doesn’t move to wipe them when they fall. “I’m forgetting his face.” 

Dani prays for strength for Sarah, and takes a breath, pulling the other woman closer. Sarah doesn’t seem to be used to human contact - she doesn’t know where to put her hands, how to lean into Dani for support - but eventually she seems to take something from Dani’s presence, and appears to pull herself back together a little. Dani hates herself just a little for having to talk Sarah into facing the monster that has haunted her for thirty years, but she does it anyway, coaxing Sarah into, eventually, heading back to the cabin. 

They approach the cabin slowly, Sarah reluctant to enter and Dani reluctant to push her, both unsure of what to expect. Once they do manage to enter the building, what she isn’t expecting is to be handed a beer by an old-man-murder-bot, but that’s what happens, and fuck, Dani just cannot keep up with this day. Lost, her eyes gravitate automatically to Grace. She’s safe, whole: Carl clearly hasn’t attacked in their absence. 

Sarah refuses the beer, and listens stonily while Carl explains his texts, and why he was doing what he was doing - to give Sarah purpose. To bring meaning to the death he caused. It’s an emotional minefield and Dani doesn’t even know where to start, but Sarah does; Dani jumps when a handgun is pulled from seemingly out of nowhere and even Grace isn’t fast enough to stop Sarah getting off three rounds, a neat pattern of destruction appearing on Carl’s chest. He seems unmoved, but Sarah seems a little better, and once her heart rate returns to normal and the adrenaline subsides, Dani finds she can understand Sarah’s actions, just a little. 

There’s a pause, and then the moment's broken by the arrival of Carl’s...wife? Girlfriend? Dani doesn’t know. It’s surreal. Soon, they’re sitting around with Carl and his, his _family_ , having another beer and chatting like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Everyone except Sarah, who couldn’t be projecting more surly energy into the conversation if she tried. 

It can’t last, this detour into normalcy, and it doesn’t - after dinner, Carl suggests his family take a trip into town, and they take the hint, leaving them to be able to openly discuss ways to destroy the Rev-9, sitting in Carl’s garden. The surreal sensation of discussing wholesale destruction while surrounded by birdsong and dappled sunlight reinforces the strangeness of the day.

Dani doesn’t have a frame of reference for a lot of the discussion - kill boxes? EMPs? - but when Grace shuts down the suggested plan - when she discusses it as if she’s calling Dani’s shots - well...Dani sure as shit isn’t going to sit there and be spoken about as if she’s not. As much as she feels for Grace - and she does - they are going to have _words_ about that later. 

There’s a feeling rising within her, goaded into being by Grace's dismissal of her presence, a power she doesn’t know how to quantify within the idea of herself or her life, and it bursts out of her in strength and anger and words. She stops their bickering about how they're going to defeat the Rev in it's tracks, and stands up and defines the terms of their next battle for them. As much as she doesn’t like it, using her as bait is the _one_ way they get to choose the battlefield - the one way they get to set the terms of how they meet - and to Dani, that makes a lot of sense. So, she puts her foot down. She tells the legendary warrior, the augmented super-human and the Terminator how things are going to be...and they listen. 

It surprises her that they do, but she’s too angry, too full of this new power to stop, and so she turns to Grace and says, “Can I talk to you?”, and before she hears the reply, she’s off and walking into the house. 

She does hear, though, Sarah call out, “Don’t bang the house down! There’s people waiting to shower,” along with a darkly gloomy chuckle, and Carl’s confused, “But the house is structurally sound, I do not underst-” before she’s inside the house and heading for the guest room. 

As soon as Grace shuts the door behind herself, Dani’s whirling, emotions spiking. Her anger makes it hard to think of the right words in English, just for a moment. “You do not get to talk to me as if I am not there,” She says. It surprises her, the note of command her voice carries. She likes it. “I am a goddamned _person_ , and you do not make choices for me!” She is punctuating her statement with a finger, pointing at the taller woman. “This is a good plan, and we will make it work!” 

She stops, and stares at Grace, waiting for a response, but Grace doesn’t say anything, because she’s staring at Dani like she’s just seeing her for the first time, a look on her face that stops Dani’s anger and transforms the energy of it into something warmer but no less urgent. Grace takes a step forward, then another, her eyes locked on Dani’s, and Dani can feel a tug, a mesmerising pull in her chest, a feeling inside her that’s winding and twisting and filling her to the brim. 

Then Grace is on her, and with her next step she bends down and picks Dani up. Dani’s legs wrap around Grace’s waist even as their lips meet, and then she feels a wall at her back, strong and solid and allowing her to push into Grace. It’s not like the last time - this is passion and energy spilling out, entwining them both in an inescapable mire of lust. She can’t imagine this turning into anything soft and slow, no; this is a fire that will have to burn itself out.

Dani can feel where every part of her body is touching Grace, and it’s not enough. She’s never felt need - primal and unstoppable - like this before, swelling within her. Parts of her are desperate for touch in a way that feels all-encompassing, like she can't think of anything else, like she’ll die if she doesn’t get it. 

She’s moaning likes she's never heard herself moan before, making sounds that would embarrass her with anyone else, but here they feel natural, needful. Grace isn’t doing much better, gasps and groans ripped out of her as they kiss against the wall. 

It’s amazing, but it's not enough. Dani pushes them away from the wall, drops to her feet and manages to pant, “the bed,” between kisses, pulling them toward it, kicking off her shoes. She hisses with arousal as Grace's fingers dip under her top, tracing up her sides as she lifts it off Dani’s torso. Grace's hands on her bare back feel incredible. 

Grace is backing her toward the bed now, and she sits down with a thump, continuing into the motion by climbing backwards onto the bed and leaning back, pulling the taller woman down with her. She’s reaching down, tugging at the hem of Grace’s tank top. Grace leans up and pulls it off for her in one smooth motion and then she’s dropping forward, her hands either side of Dani’s head, and Dani realises that she's not wearing a bra: she's fucking _stunning_. Nothing about her - the scars, the bruising, the battle-worn body - detracts from the arousal that penetrates her mind at the sight of Grace naked from the waist up, and the first touch of stomach to stomach makes her moan as Grace slowly lowers herself down. But, despite the kissing and the sheer goddamn heat of the situation, it becomes clear that Grace on top isn’t going to be a sustainable position. 

Damn height difference. 

Dani pushes at Grace’s shoulder and the other woman knows - she moves off Dani, turning them both sideways and pulling the smaller woman flush with her. This is better: she has more access to touch, here, and feels less smothered, and she lets her touch roam, stroking Grace’s side, sliding across her stomach, moving closer and closer to Grace's breasts. 

Somehow, Grace undoes her bra one-handed, and she feels the straps loosen on her shoulders, her skin meeting the air. They fumble and negotiate and then the garment’s gone, and Dani pushes Grace onto her back, rolling on top of her, sliding a leg between hers and feeling Grace lift the leg she’s straddling to press against her. She means to pull back, to undo and remove her trousers, but, oh, it feels _good_ , and she leans hard into that feeling.

With skin-on-skin and the firm pressure of a thigh muscle pressed against her, Dani gasps. She’s so turned on that she can’t help but roll her hips just once to try and ease the ache, but just once turns into twice, three times, and she can feel Grace starting to roll beneath her, meeting her motion with one of her own that perfectly compliments it. 

She knows she has to stop to take her trousers off, and the thought of being truly naked with Grace is mind-blowing, but she...can’t resist the magnetism of the movement between them. The ebb and flow of their motion is too intoxicating, the cycle of their need - rise and crest and subside - and Grace’s leg is providing just the right pressure in just the right spot. She’s not thinking anymore: she’s a creature of need and movement and skin and lips...and every kiss, every thrust is eroding more of her conscious mind until the only thing remaining is _thismorenowgodmore_. 

Grace seems as lost as she is; her hands are gripping Dani’s hips with force that’s just the right side of too much, pulling Dani hard into her as she wraps one of her legs around the one Dani has in the v of her legs, flexing her leg muscles under Dani's core. 

The ache low down is now unbearable, a monument to carnality that consumes her from the inside out. She doesn’t mean to do it, but she speeds up and then, oh _God_ , it’s just there, rushing through her like a freight train, smashing her to pieces for a sweet second. 

Her forehead is pressed against Grace’s chest when she comes back to herself. She presses a kiss to Grace’s skin and feels the other woman shudder. She means to ask, to try and find the words somehow to know if Grace has...whether Grace also...but she finds she can tell when she looks at her face, from the blurring of her gaze, the set of her mouth. 

She strokes Grace’s cheek, completely winded and unable to describe how she’s feeling in this moment, but Grace seems to understand - she reaches up, entwines their hands and puts them on her chest, and wraps her other arm around Dani, pulling her closer. 

They stay like that for a few minutes, lost in a satiated glow, a warmth that surrounds them both despite their semi-naked and sweated states, until there’s a lazy knock, and a voice from the other side of the door. 

“Can I shower yet?” 

*  
Dani awakens with a start, panting slightly in the darkness of her rooms, shaken from the complication of emotions swirling through her, leaving parts of herself she’d forgotten about washed clean and exposed. It’d been like she was back there, it’d felt so...so immediate, and she has to get up and splash water on her face simply to ground herself back in the here and now. 

She checks the clock - it’s late in the morning, much later than she’s slept in for years, and she knows her XO must have ordered her undisturbed. Even Commanders have to recoup after a battle, and she’s grateful for the extra time, but now her day will be even busier, and she can’t afford more time lost. 

As much as she wants to stay in that dream, re-realise those feelings, she has to push them away and start her day with as clear a head as she can manage. 

*  
But, later that night, despite everything, despite hours of telling herself not to, despite her XO making a joke of it (because of _course_ , when Grace asked her out in Ops, it was all over the base in seconds) and telling her not to worry, young soldiers will have crushes, she finds herself outside the Western Mess Hall at 21:00 that evening. She tells herself it’s because it’s the polite thing to do, and Grace _did_ save her life on the transport, but her real reason feels a little more selfish - if she needs anyone in this world to see her as more than a figure-head, it’s Grace. 

Too much sound is frowned upon, and so the party doesn’t really resemble the parties Dani remembers from her youth in Mexico city, with music so loud you could feel the bass in your chest, but there’s laughter and shouting and someone’s clearly been brewing some strong hooch somewhere. 

She hesitates, lingers at the doorway and listens for a moment, and then realises the ridiculousness of the situation. What the hell is she doing there? She feels a burst of irritation at herself, and spins on her heel to leave just as the door swings open. 

“Dani?” It’s Grace, of _course_ it is, and she sounds delighted, surprised, confused. 

Dani turns, a polite word of celebration on her lips, an ‘I was just passing and thought I would wish you a belated birthday,’ primed, but as she faces the other woman the words freeze in her throat. 

Grace is staring at her, but her arm is around a gorgeous red-head who’s nuzzling into Grace’s neck and laughing. Her hand is under Grace’s shirt, playing with the skin of her stomach, and it’s clear they were looking for a little privacy. 

“Soldier.” Dani is trying her best to be professional, she really is, but something in her is _roiling_. “I see now is a bad time.” 

Grace is desperately trying to fish the wandering arm out from under her shirt and untangle herself from the embrace. “No. No! Not at all. I...I didn’t think you were coming...Just, give me a…” She’s wriggling like a fish in the grasp of the tipsy woman holding her who thinks this is all some sort of game, and hasn’t realised - or doesn't care - that they have an audience. 

Mustering her dignity, Dani semi-smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. “Don’t interrupt your...party,” she doesn’t mean to hesitate over the word, and can see that Grace catches it. Damn. “I was passing. Happy birthday.” She turns and calls back over her shoulder. “I have to get back to work.” 

“No...Wait…!” Grace calls, but Dani is already round the corner and gone. 

*

She works for at least an hour without a break, pouring frustration into reports, papers, assessments, budgets, tactics. She loses herself in the administration of war, the facts and figures and numbers, and blocks out any thought of pretty red-heads or Grace’s flushed cheeks and carefree smile. 

After a while, she becomes restive. As focusing as the paperwork is, it’s not quite enough. She looks around her office, and wonders how long she’s spent there alone, balancing the cost of war. She feels old, for a moment, old and worn. 

She has a private attachment to her office; a room that’s just for her, a room that she retreats to when the stress of leading becomes too much. She heads there now. Inside, an old salvaged punch bag stands, beaten and repaired. It was her XO’s idea, to have something safe she could take her anger out on, and it turned out to be a good one. 

She takes off her uniform shirt, leaving her in a dark tank top and trousers, and takes clean boxing wraps off the shelf. She wraps her hands tightly, three times around the wrist, then around the knuckles, around the thumb, back around the wrist. She slips on her gloves. The pressure around her hands feels good; the anticipation of sweat and violence feels better. 

She starts small. Small movements, small combinations. 1. 1-2. 1-2-3-4. She adds rolls and slips. She adds kicks, elbows and knees, each move precise and sharp and dangerous. She’s had a lot of practice; it’s been hard to get a certain kind of person to accept her as a leader, and she’s had her share of fights. She starts to sweat, dripping onto the cheap linoleum floor. 

She gets into a zone, a meditation of movement, ducking and weaving, side-stepping and striking. All her focus is on the bag and her next move. It’s for that reason that she doesn’t hear the door open. 

She feels the movement behind her though, and without thought strikes out, a vicious spinning back-fist that Grace doesn’t quite parry in time. Despite the gloves she’s wearing, it’s still a hell of a blow, and Grace reels backward, clutching her jaw. Dani is used to fighting people taller than her, and she doesn’t miss.

“Grace!” Dani blinks, unsure for a minute that she’s seeing what she’s seeing, but no, Grace is here, in her sanctum, holding her face in shock. “I…”. They stare at each, frozen. Dani recovers first, ripping open the old velcro of her gloves and tossing them down, reaching up for Grace’s jaw. 

She’s almost there when Grace flinches away, eyes hot and hurt. Dani clenches the outstretched hand into a fist, shocked, and pulls it back, just as Grace twists on her heel and heads for the door. 

“Wait!” She jumps forward and catches Grace’s elbow. “Grace, _wait_.” 

Grace rips her arm from Dani’s grip but does stop, eyes fixed ahead, hand still to her jaw. “I shouldn’t have come.” 

“Then, why did you?” Dani can't help but respond. She's sorry for hitting her, absolutely, and she's trying to be the grown-up, the leader, but she’s tired and worn-out and so damn over waiting for whatever she’s supposed to be waiting for that she’s not playing nice anymore. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, angry. But she can’t...she doesn’t have the energy to keep at this, she just _can’t_ , and she pushes past Grace and into her office, goes to the table in the corner and pours herself a drink from the collection she has in place for visiting officers. She moves back to the middle of the room, leans against her desk, wraps an arm around her own midriff. The sweat glistening on her skin is making her uncomfortably chill and she shudders, peers into her drink, drinks it. 

Grace is staring at her now. “It wasn’t...It wasn’t what you thought.”

Dani straightens, clenches her jaw. “One, It is none of my business what you do, or who you do it with,” she drinks her drink. “And two, do not insult me - it was _exactly_ what I thought.” 

Grace snorts with anger. “Okay! So what if it was?” 

Dani feels like she’s losing her grip on the situation, on her grip to articulate her position. She puts the drink down and grips her desk with both hands, staring at Grace. “Why are you here?” 

“Because! I…” Grace stops, biting her lip, and Dani is getting frustrated. Waiting for her love was supposed to be survivable. It wasn’t supposed to be _this_ \- frustration and confusion and endless fucking waiting, and she's _done_.

“Because _what_ , Grace? It is none of my business who you decide to sleep with!” 

She wonders if this is her fault; if her past connection means she’s been expecting too much from Grace. There’s a pause. Grace is pacing, and Dani picks up her drink again. She studies the amber liquid, studies the refracting light in her glass. Stares hard. Her other hand grips the desk she’s leaning back on so tightly her fingers ache. She can hear Grace is pacing, glances up, sees her running her hands through her hair. 

She can't take her eyes off her as Grace bursts out with, “Then why does it _always_ feel like it is?” 

It’s such a direct question, an acknowledgement that Grace might actually _feel_ something, here and now, this version of her, that Dani’s caught off guard. She shakes her head. “Grace…” 

But Grace isn't having it, and before Dani can blink, she’s towering over her, hands planted outside Dani’s own on the desk, “I don’t know what to do," She says, and it's heartfelt, torn from within her. "You're so damn distant, untouchable...but...There's _something_...I don’t know how to _think_ around you. I was only...I couldn’t...” 

There’s so much heat in her gaze, so much emotion, that Dani feels herself dismantling from the inside out. She feels like a scared twenty year old girl again, clinging to Grace in the desert like her life depends on it. She feels every crack she has in her armour widening with Grace so close. 

They stare and stare, something growing between them, rising and filling the space, palpable as a taste on her tongue, a tingling in her fingers, and then...they move in unison. Dani winds her arms around Grace’s neck as Grace’s hands reach under Dani’s thighs and lift her onto the desk as their lips crash together. She can feel one of Grace’s arms wrap around her back, the other one straight out, balancing them on the desk. 

She can’t think, can’t analyse what she’s feeling. All she can feel is Grace’s lips against hers, Grace’s body pressing closer. She can hear papers, files, folders, staplers and her little metal vase of wildflowers skidding across the table, hitting the floor, but she couldn’t stop now if a Terminator burst through the door. 

Grace’s lips are soft, moving against hers with determined pressure even as Grace’s hand pulls her tank-top from the belt of her uniform trousers and slips under, caressing the skin of her back. 

It’s all Dani can do to hold on to the taller woman, arms around her neck, clinging on for dear life as once muted emotions rush to the surface, drowning her in the chemical rush of giving in, of stopping resistance, of her whole body saying _yesyesyes_. The dream-experience on last night has _nothing_ on the real thing. 

She feels herself shunted back on the desk as Grace tries to get closer still and she opens her legs wider, allowing Grace space as they kiss. She puts one hand out behind her to stop from toppling, and can’t help but arch into the taller woman, pressing her chest and hips out, looking for more pressure, more stimulation, just _more_. 

Grace whimpers into her mouth, and Dani feels it in her chest, her head, her toes. She wraps her legs up and around Grace’s waist and hears sounds escaping her she thought her throat could no longer make. 

It’s like a forest-fire blazing between them, devouring common sense; it’s instinctual movement without thought, and Dani has only felt something like this once before, a long, long time ago, with the woman who is and who isn’t kissing her now. She hiss-groans as Grace presses forward with her hips, fanning the flames that are gathering in her belly, licking at her self-control, setting fire to her will to keep things from getting out of control on her desk. 

She brings her back hand round with the intention of pressing Grace back, of getting a little air, a little perspective, but instead finds her fingers sliding through Grace’s hair, tangling in blonde strands, stroking the back of her head and neck and pulling her closer, still closer. They tip, Grace moving forward, Dani leaning back, Grace’s weight settling between her legs as they take up more of her desk. 

“Grace,” She manages, when their lips separate so that the taller woman can kiss her neck; she feels a tongue touch the sweat on her skin, and she shudders, forgets the words that were on the tip of her tongue. Her next attempt comes out more a moan than a plea. 

There’s a spot on the side of her neck; FuturePast-Grace had known to concentrate there, and now Dani knows _when_ she discovered it. She gasps, feels something pull low-down and sweet, feels her nerves sing, and Grace doesn’t miss it, attuned to her already as she appears to be. She hears the sound of Grace murmuring approval against her neck, feels teeth scrape against her skin. She can’t help but have to touch skin, to delve under a rumpled uniform shirt and dig her fingers into narrow hips. 

They’re dangerously close to the point of no return; there’s a sea-swell to their motion, a slight rocking that suggests passion leaking out, raw and almost unconstrained. It feels like she can’t get enough air, like it’s too much too soon, like she’s trying to swallow a lake after thirsting for so long, but Grace’s weight and shape on top of her, the sounds she’s making, they’re all goads to her lust and she's finding that she just can’t comprehend the size of it. 

That is, until Grace pushes her a little further back to try and climb on to the desk herself. She has one knee up on the desk, her mouth on Dani’s again, hot and slick and purposeful, and Dani moans into it, lost, until she hears, tinny and faint by her ear, _“Commander? Is everything alright?”_ And by the tone, it’s not the first time her XO has asked. 

Somehow, they’ve triggered her desk intercom. Dani freezes, turns her mouth away from Grace’s. It takes the other woman a little longer to come back to herself, but when she does she starts shaking, and Dani realises it’s with suppressed laughter. 

_“Commander? Are you okay?”_ Now he’s sounding slightly worried. She wonders just exactly what kind of noise was broadcast, imagines him sat in his office, perplexed. She glances at the intercom and sees that, thank goodness, THANK GOODNESS, it’s only his line that’s active. Not, for example, the base-wide intercom. 

She puts a hand over Grace’s mouth, and tries to sit up, but can’t help but feel a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth as she presses a hand to her heart, trying to calm herself as quickly as possible. She can’t even think of what to say, in Spanish or in English. As she’s trying to gather herself, Grace isn’t helping, nuzzling her and dropping soft kisses on an exposed shoulder. 

She clears her throat once, twice, tries not to laugh, turns her head away from Grace’s gaze as she pulls her face into a more stoic position. “Jake. Sorry. I tripped...and, uh, stubbed my toe, must have knocked the intercom on. Everything’s fine.” 

She’s trying to avoid Grace’s ministrations as she takes charge of the situation, but can’t deny the finger under her chin, turning her gaze to face the blonde. Grace is smiling with her lip between her teeth. Dani tries and tries to listen for his reply, but she doesn’t hear it, caught suddenly in the depth of Grace’s gaze, aware of her own deep breathing, her adrenaline, Grace’s proximity. “Repeat that, XO?” She asks, operating on automatic, trailing a finger down Grace’s cheek. 

She tries, God knows she tries, but she doesn’t hear it the second time either. Grace is tipping her head to the side, smiling: she knows that she’s completely derailed Dani’s train of thought and she's happy with herself. There’s something joyful in this Grace, something earnest and direct and open. It hits Dani in the solar plexus, makes her breathless, and she realises - she may have loved a different Grace...but there’s a lot here to love, now, in this time. 

She mumbles some sign off, hopes it sounds coherent, but can’t break Grace’s gaze. She fumbles behind her, switching off the intercom with a deliberate exaggerated finality that makes Grace laugh breathlessly. It sparks an answering joy that swirls within her, and she smiles at the resurgence of some sort of happiness, uncurling and unfettered and filling her with such warmth. 

She can’t stop the taller woman when she reaches forward for a kiss, can’t stop her eyes sliding closed, but she succeeds after a moment in pulling back. “Not here.” 

Grace ungracefully rescinds her claim to Dani’s lips, and they stand up off the desk. Dani looks down at herself and sighs; her tank top is half off, the button to her trousers mysteriously open (when she questions Grace with a look and a gesture, Grace shrugs, completely unapologetic, and grins) and she can feel that her hair is escaping its usual braids, flyaways and strays haloing her head. 

Grace doesn’t look much better, with her shirt untucked, and her hair a mess. Dani can’t help it; she moves forward and starts doing up Grace’s buttons. There’s skin there she’s dying to touch, to taste, and the faster they get somewhere more private, the faster that can happen. Grace lets her, smiling down, running a hand over Dani’s shoulder, down her arms, focused with an intention that makes Dani flutter inside. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for lag in posting; boxing injury means typing is slower than usual.

Intimacy, for her, has never been an experience like the one she's having now.

Before, it’s been desperate moments, stolen in deserts or motels or aeroplane cockpits. It's been too-short experiences, in cabins or woodlands, or moments rooted in the wrong type of emotion. Or, in the here-and-now, it's been an impersonal means to an end, a series of unsatisfying encounters. 

It’s never been this: the journey from office to home that seems to take forever, anticipation making patience impossible, making each step a study in tension that dances across her skin. A rising need, a teasing-wanting rhythm in their walk, excitement building with every touch of Grace’s hand on her back. The gut-punch of excitement on seeing your door; passing through and shutting it and thinking, _finally_. The slow, languorous removal of clothing that devolves into a devouring of each other, lips and hands everywhere, red hot need. 

It’s never been this: deliberate appreciation, focused attention. The passionate moment where mutual need is recognised, fed back into itself. It’s almost too vulnerable in the midst of aching urgency. Kisses covering faces, sweat-slicked and breathless. Movement at odds but complimentary, a rocking, driving beat underpinning their duet. 

It’s never been this: mutual climax, at first driven and fast, but then next time slow and steady and shared in breath and movement, eye contact and momentum, and there’s _time_ to build it, no rush, no-where else to be, a monumental climb to a fall they take tangled together, voices twined. 

It’s never been this: an aftermath she can relax into, a moment as deep as the ocean, kissing Grace in the moonlight, whispering nothings in pillow-talk, feeling Grace’s joy and laughter and passion transferred through breath and skin. 

*

When she's recovered a little, she presses up from her position lying atop Grace, hovering, staring down in the moonlight. It reminds her, just for a minute, of a different Grace, staring up at her from a guest bed while late afternoon leaf-dappled sun streams through the cabin window. Dani, here and now, traces Grace’s face - the space under her eyes where one day scars will lie, the place between her eyebrows where, in the past, tension sits, digging furrows into the skin. She feels sadness pushing through her passion, threatening to derail her momentum as she stares into the achingly open and vulnerable eyes of the woman underneath her. Grace senses her shift, cocks her head, studying her. 

“Hey,” Grace murmurs, shifts herself so she can reach up and run a thumb over Dani’s bottom lip. Her eyes are flicking from Dani’s mouth to her eyes, searching, worrying. “Don’t leave me now.” 

Dani closes her eyes for a second, presses a kiss against the pad of Grace’s thumb. “Never,” She whispers in Spanish. 

Grace doesn’t know what she says, but she can tell the intention. Her face shifts in the pale, low light, cycling through passion, surprise, and something so deep and fleeting that Dani wonders if she imagines it. The next moment, Grace is kissing her with a gentle authority that pushes her sadness down, subsumes it into a bittersweet yearning that engulfs her like a fog, takes her doubts and melts them down into banked embers of desire. Grace sits up; they readjust so that Dani’s legs are wrapped around Grace’s hips, her ass in the space between Grace’s legs, her arms wrapped around Grace’s neck. 

She _sees_ Grace, here, now, longing for her and beautiful with it, and cups Grace’s face, kissing her with everything she can muster that says, I’m here, I’m here with you, _I’m here now_.

*

They work themselves to exhaustion. Each time they break for too long, one or the other can’t seem to resist re-igniting the flame, touching the other with tired but unmistakable intent. Dani’s sore in ways she’s forgotten she could be; deep aches that speak of untrammelled passion and of unused muscles burning with fatigue. 

When they sleep, finally, her dreams are blurry with exhaustion. 

*  
Sarah's voice from the other side of the door reminds them they're in the real world still, and they break apart. Dani's confused, on the comedown of an orgasm and feeling emotionally raw with it. She looks at Grace as they redress, straightening clothing, sees the same confusion on her face, but they have zero time to talk because then Sarah's done waiting, opening the door and pushing past them and into the guest room en suite, muttering all the while. They move to the lounge, sit next to each other on the sofa - Dani slouching, Grace ramrod straight - without speaking while they wait for Sarah to finish. 

The aftershocks of arousal and the confusion of the encounter make Dani unable to sit still: She has to turn to Grace. Grace's eyes are wide, she's staring at her hands clasped in her lap, and Dani reaches out slowly and hesitantly, takes them hold of them, separates one and holds it gently. Grace lets her. 

They're still sitting like that when Sarah comes out, re-dressed and towelling her hair. "You might want to take short showers; not sure how much hot water there is," she says. She says it straight but her words are coloured with dark amusement at their expense. 

Dani comes to a snap decision, stands, tugs on Grace's hand. "Come on." Sarah's confused, Grace's confused, but Dani shrugs. She feels a little bit like her old self when she leads Grace to the guest room, calling back over her shoulder, "If there's not much hot water left, we'd better shower together, then." And she turns, quirks an eyebrow at Sarah, shrugs and shuts the door on her. 

She hears a sound she hasn't heard before, and turns: Grace is murmuring a laugh, somewhere between smiling and embarrassed. Dani notices the faintest, pinkest touch of a blush on Grace's cheeks and she feels a rush of affection that she can't control. 

"We..." She's suddenly a little embarrassed, a little frustrated. "We don't have to...I was just...Sarah's so..."

Grace quiets her with a kiss that's so unexpected Dani stutters in to silence. Grace stares at her for a long moment, and then takes her by the hand, leading her to the bathroom. 

*

Perhaps their shower takes a little longer than they mean it to. They definitely, definitely use all the hot water. 

*

Once they’re showered, they head out into the garden with Carl to examine his frankly ludicrous arsenal of weaponry. Sarah and Grace look thrilled, but to Dani, it’s daunting - downright scary - and she's on the back foot. She and Grace...They've just been cocooned in a world of their own, wreathed in steam, lost in each other, and she wants time to let the moments settle in her memory, her bones, but now...they want her to pick up a gun and go to war. 

...It's a bit much, and she doesn't have a clue about any of it. She’s only held a gun once in her life, and this is stuff that looks like the recoil would knock her on her ass. So, she’s happy when Grace picks out a moderately sized handgun for her to start with, and they head outside - of course Carl has targets in his woodland, all with neat groupings of shots on head and heart. That's not...creepy.

They set out watermelons - or bottles? Her memory is blurry - for her to aim for. She tries, she really does, but she’s not used to the feel of a weapon, not used to the kick-back, and she’s missing every time. 

The experts around her are calling out - “Widen your stance!”, “Drop your elbow!” - but it’s like describing the movements of a dance to someone and expecting them to dance it perfectly from the get-go; it’s not happening straight away, and everyone's getting frustrated. It doesn't help when Grace - thinking to be helpful - comes and stands behind Dani, hands on her arms, positioning her body, but Grace's heat, her touch, the feeling of her folding around Dani...it’s too much. The handgun suddenly feels like it weighs a tonne, she’s leaning back into Grace, and her breath catches in her throat, thoughts of violence lost. 

Then Sarah’s in her face, pushing a huge gun into her hands. Grace disappears from behind her, Sarah’s whispering, “Terminators killed your whole family, what are you going to do about it?” and she’s confused and slightly turned on and her grief is never, ever too far from the surface and she's possibly in love with a half-machine from the future and, _bang, bang, bang!_ , the melons disappear in a miasma of pulp and seed. 

Oh. Anger drains from her, leaves her feeling sick. She lowers the gun. She doesn’t like the feeling of firing it, doesn’t like the vicious power, doesn’t like the trick Sarah pulled on her, and she drops the weapon, ripping off her ear defenders and heading for the nearest private space - Carl's bunker - before anyone can stop her.

She wraps her arms around her stomach; she needs a moment of peace to get her head together, to repackage her grief into something manageable. She's taking deep breaths, trying to settle herself, when Grace ducks in, looking awkwardly at her, unsure how to approach. 

“No, I am not okay,” She says, anticipating Grace’s question. She glances up into wide, wide eyes that radiate a desperate desire to help. “I’m…” She sighs. “I’m not a warrior, Grace. I’m just someone you have to keep safe so I can…” she gestures at her stomach, shrugs. “I don’t know if I can do this…” Because what is she, really? She's not Wonder Woman, or a soldier, she's just a factory they have to keep safe until she can produce what they need.

But Grace comes over to her, awkwardness transformed into purpose. She puts her hands on Dani’s shoulders, forces her to tip her head back to see the sheer, concrete certainty in Graces eyes when she says, “You can do this. You absolutely can do this. You're strong. You're brave. You...you are one of the bravest people I've ever met,” and there's a wobble there, a depth to Grace's words that draws Dani in.

They stare for a long moment, until Dani nods, just once, slowly. She feels buoyed by Grace’s presence, filled with confidence by proxy, her fear melting slightly under Grace’s conviction. Grace’s mouth turns up at the corners just slightly, and she glances back once to the doorway, doesn’t see anyone else, and surprises Dani with a feather-light kiss. “You can do this,” She repeats as they part, lips millimetres apart, and Dani thinks that maybe, just maybe, she can. 

*

The dream turns frightening, then, not just a re-watching of a memory but a full re-living of it, anxiety and panic and sweat as they travel in Carl’s van, trying to get the only weapon capable of killing the damn Terminator, waiting in an abandoned building like they’re criminals, which Dani supposes, actually, they kind of are. 

What happens next is soaked in fear - flashes of violence, snap-shots frozen in horrifying detail in her mind. The shooting of the Major, the escape in the van, the chase by the helicopter, the dash on to the base - it feels like she’s trapped in a movie reel of panic-drenched memory, racing from van to base to plane. 

She feels the weight of the moment on her, the panic that they HAVE to get away, the hysteria of the whole experience hitting her in body and mind. She’s caught, trapped in this moment as the Terminator comes at them in the helicopter while they're trying to get air-born, shooting through the cargo bay doors. She's reliving everything, the sight, the sounds, until she hears Grace calling her name, feels like she’s being pulled up from the bottom of the ocean, wakes with a suddenness that leaves her reeling and clutching at the woman in her bed. 

She’s panting, sweating, unsure for just a second where she is, and so unused to having someone see her like this that it hurts, sets all her alarm bells ringing. She swings her legs out of her bed, embarrassed by the vulnerability and needing a moment of space, but before she can stand Grace reaches out, grabs her wrist. “Dani…” Her touch is soft and Dani knows she could break it if she wanted to, but she finds she doesn’t. 

“It’s nothing,” Her voice is sleep-rough and low. “Just a dream.” 

“Do you…” Grace is shifting, sitting up. There’s hesitation, then Dani feels legs sliding around the outside of her own as Grace sits behind her, fits herself around her, one arm around Dani’s belly, breasts pressing into her back, comfort offered in skin and warmth. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Dani holds the tenseness in her muscles like a shield until, with one long exhale, she consciously lowers her guard, leans back just a little, rests the back of her head on Grace's shoulder. She feels Grace’s lips ghost her hair. “Not really,” She says. She honestly has no idea where to start. She knows that one day...she’ll have to explain all of this. Grace clearly goes back fore-armed with knowledge. But she really, really doesn’t want to have to think about that, not now, not when they’re just _beginning_. “I just…I need…” 

Grace understands. The lips in her hair travel to her ear, her neck. The hand on her belly strokes lower, fingers teasing. Dani opens her legs just a little wider, pushing Grace’s legs wider too, and leans back a little more into the other woman, giving her access, giving her _herself_ , putting her body in Grace’s hands. 

Grace understands. 

*

Her dreams, when they finally sleep again, are calmer. Fixed on a point in that crazy chase that she’ll never forget - the point when Grace tipped her hand. 

They’re in the cockpit of the plane, because of course Grace can fly it. She’ll wonder for years how the hell Grace knows how to do all of this, fly helicopters and army plans that, to Grace, must be horribly out-dated, when one day it occurs to her - _she’ll_ tell her. 

Everyone’s crammed into the cramped cockpit, and Carl arrives with the heartbreaking news that the EMP’s are fucked - shot through in the recent attack by the Rev-9. Carl estimates their chances at 12% without them, and Dani feels the hope dwindling from within everyone in the room - she can't stand it. She has to say - hey, it’s not zero. They can still do this. 

Grace disagrees, but Dani continues, over-riding her - they _can_ do this. They _have_ to.

“We stick to the plan,” She’s saying, and “We set the trap and then we-”

“No, Dani,” Grace sounds exhausted, tired of having to explain this over and over and it _galls_ Dani. “You just...you can’t _do_ that.”

“Why?” She’s tired, and she’s pissed, and she needs Grace to get that as much as they want to focus on her mythical saviour-baby, it's Dani that's here, Dani who isn't just a container for a future-hope, Dani who has a mind, has opinions. “Because my son is supposed to save us all? And until then, what? I just keep watching people _die_?”

“The future of the human race depends on you makin-”

“I don’t give a shit about the future! About what I’m maybe supposed to do one day!” Dani’s pushing back, pushing back against fate, against everything. She feels that power rising in herself one more, feels her certainty inhabit her. “What matters is the choices we make now!” She can feel the _rightness_ of what she’s saying, believes it with every inch of herself. 

And that’s when everything changes. That’s when Grace lets it slip. She’s looking at her, deep and searching, and then she sighs, shakes her head, murmurs almost to herself, “I’ve seen that look too many times before.” 

Dani’s stunned. Shaken. Her power drains. Her mind takes the words, lets them sink in, but it takes a moment before they’re translated into understanding - Grace _knows_ her. Knew? Will know? 

“You know me,” she pauses as Grace looks up at her, almost resigned. “In the future.”

Grace runs her tongue over her teeth. “Yeah,” And the way she says it...Dani knows her well enough now to know that that word is holding a world of understatement. “I _know_ you.” 

And then her world is turned a little more upside-down. “It was you,” Grace’s eyes won’t leave hers, and she can’t look away. “Who found me in the ruins after judgement day. You _saved_ me.”

Dani can’t believe it, can’t believe the woman in front of her would ever need saving, can’t believe that she’ll be someone capable of it, but the truth is there, stark in Grace’s resolute gaze, in her practised recitation of the encounter: Dani, taking down the scavengers; Dani, turning them to her side with one short, perfect speech; Dani, leading her out of the ruins, taking her to safety with a militia at her back.

Grace clearly has every second of the encounter seared into her mind, and it’s too real to be made-up. Grace says that Dani taught her to hope - taught them all to hope. It’s so much to take on board that she slumps, reeling. It was a lot when she thought she simply had to birth the saviour, but now she _is_ the saviour? She feels, quite literally, the weight of the world pressing on her, pushing her down and down until her knees can't take the weight. She sits down hard on something - she doesn’t know what - in the cockpit, breath seizing in her chest. She feels tears in her eyes, can’t stop them. 

Grace continues. She’ll turn scavengers into militias and militias into armies, and she, a nothing woman from Mexico, will lift them all from out of the ashes, and show them how to take their world back. Grace, her truth unleashed, now looks at her with hope and desire and trust and...and _love_ and comes forward, kneeling before her like a supplicant, taking her hands. 

“You taught us,” she’s saying, eyes bright, “That there’s no fate except that which we make for ourselves,” but Dani can’t look at her for a minute, she just can’t, because she can see the Dani Grace knows reflected in her eyes, being shaped by her words, and how can she live up to that? How can she be expected to save the world? The fate that Grace is so convinced she knows how to change is wrapping around her like a python, trapping her in inescapable coils of expectation, of pressure, and Dani just _doesn't know_ if she can live up to this...and she's spiralling, lost, sinking into her fear... 

Grace calls her back, stops the spiral with one word, just one. Her name in that voice is enough: “Dani.”

With an effort of will, she meets Grace's eyes again, sees the hope in those depths. “You are not the mother of the man who saves the future, you…” She says, and she’s gripping her Dani's hands tight. “You _are_ the future. _That’s_ why Legion wants you dead.” 

They’re taking it in. Sarah...she hears her say, “She’s John?”, in shock, and when their eyes meet, she says it again, in wonder, “You’re _John_.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before,” Grace pulls her attention back. “But you told me that the Dani I’d meet in the past...couldn’t handle it…” She seems almost embarrassed. “But you’re not that Dani anymore.” She’s so sure, so full of conviction that Dani feels the chaos inside her calm, just a little. 

She wants a moment, here and now, with Grace, and glances back to Sarah desperately, who somehow, miraculously, _gets_ it. She taps Carl with the end of her gun, “You. We’ll go and check on...cargo…” she says, turning and heading away. 

Carl looks at her, confused - “That is an inefficient use of our time” - but follows anyway. 

Dani watches them go until the door closes. “Grace,” She doesn’t mean for it to sound as broken as it does, but she’s panicking. “How can I do this? How can I save the _world_?” She's turning to the person who knows her future self for help, who knows this all powerful saviour...and once she realises that, _now_ she’s worrying that she’s not living up to Grace’s memory of this fierce, all conquering warrior, because in this time and place, she’s just a scared young woman. 

“Hey, hey,” Grace is catching her head between her hands, stroking her cheeks with her thumbs, soothing her. They stare at each other, until they’re moving, kissing, and Grace is saying with hallowed conviction, “You can do this, Dani. You _can_ ,” and Dani is drowning her out with kisses that are desperate and longing and thankful. 

“Are you with me? Are there two of you? You said I saved you, but you're still _you_ too, right?” She has to ask, has to fire the questions off between kisses, “And, are we...are we _this_ in the future?” 

Grace takes her hands, kisses each one, pulls her forward and kisses her again, opens her mouth to reply and-

 _"Delta echo twelve, this is Kay-Cee three-twenty, ready to refuel,"_ And it’s him on the radio, approaching in another plane, goddammit it’s _him_. Grace no longer has time to reply, in their panic to evade, to escape, but it's fruitless - within seconds there's a crash like the world's tearing apart; the Rev-9 has done the only thing it could to get on board: it's flown its plane into them, using the crash to propel itself into the now-wrecked guts of their broken bird. 

The next minutes are a grim, terrifying fight to get into the humvee and get away from him, fire and bullets and fear swirling together in her mind as she and Sarah manage to get in the vehicle while Grace and Carl remain horrifyingly exposed. Carl manages to open the cargo doors, and Grace and Sarah release the humvee and then they’re falling, falling in a metal can at hundreds of miles per hour and it's literally the most scared Dani's been in her whole life. She doesn’t even know where Grace is, until she’s there, clinging on to the outside of the vehicle like a limpet, fighting with the parachutes while they tumble through space. She manages to pop the parachutes but flips herself off the bonnet, and Dani's heart feels like it stops when she can't see her; when she doesn't know if she's still with them. And then they're crashing down hard, crashing into the dam, and Dani desperately wants the dream to stop; she doesn't want to live through what comes next, not again, no, not again, pleaseplease _please_... 

* 

She awakens with a start - the nightmares haven’t been this vivid for a long time - and turns to her side. Grace is still sleeping, familiar features serene. She can’t help herself - after that dream, she has to touch her gently, run a lock of blonde hair through her fingers. 

Grace murmurs something in her sleep and turns to her, reaching out, and Dani allows herself to be gathered in, Grace’s legs thrown over hers, Graces head on her shoulder. She strokes Grace’s back, and slowly, slowly drifts back to sleep as the dawn sun creeps in around her cheap green curtains.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are going to be a little slower until after New Years - work/life/holidays etc. Hoping to have the final chapters written over the next few weeks, and then it's just a case of editing and re-writing :) 
> 
> Couple of characters from other media might pop up - let me know if you catch a reference :)

Waking up after their first night together in the here-and-now is a surreal experience - she's not used to 'slow and comfortable' with Grace. History tells her there should be something going wrong right about now, and she feels her body tensing, expecting the worst as she wakes further...But, no. The world stays calm and quiet as she lies in her bed.

After a moment though, she finds the two sides of herself at war. There's The Commander, who knows she has to get up, knows that there's work to do, and there's Dani, who can't quite bring herself to leave Grace's warmth, her sleeping presence. She sighs, staring at the ceiling, and then turns onto her side, watching Grace sleep, serene and peaceful. The war inside her quiets down for just a moment. She's lost in the appreciation of Grace's nose, her mouth, her cheekbones.

In the end it's a moot point: The decision is made for her when Grace starts to rise to consciousness, and as soon as Dani sees a deep, waking breath, sees Grace returning to her body...all thoughts of moving flee. Dani watches her eyes open, watches her comprehend where she is, and watches the smile on her face grow. Then, Grace rolls over and straight on top of Dani with an enthusiasm that makes Dani laugh in shock, leaning down to kiss her despite Dani's protestations of morning breath.

Kisses turn into touches, touches that skitter across still-sensitive skin, re-igniting aches that are both pleasurable from longing and uncomfortable from over-used muscles. The kisses turn from light to lingering, and under questing fingers, bodies re-awaken and passion that was sleepy and dormant sparks into flame. 

As they begin exploring each other anew, Dani gets to see Grace naked in daylight, picking out details she was too rushed to see the night before. There are battle scars, small, thank god, peppering hands, arms and legs: Dani kisses as many as she can find, aware that her body mirrors Grace’s in that respect. There’s a faded bruise over her ribs on the left, which Dani feels bad for not taking into account the night before: she kisses that too, and tries to apologise for not taking care. Grace chuckles, shakes her head and kisses her, says she didn’t feel a thing.

The only time there's a grey mark on the morning is later, after the first time but before the second, when she's stretched out on her front and languorous with aftershocks. Grace lies next to her, resting on her elbow, running a hand up and down her back, and she bends down to kiss a scar, near her right shoulder blade. It’s not machine inflicted, and Dani flinches before she can help it as she feels lips touch the puckered, marred skin. It was from a coup attempt early on, and Dani...well, she doesn’t want to think about what she had to do to the person who gave it to her. Grace feels the flinch and she retreats, shifting to the side. Dani can hear the in-drawn breath that comes before the question, but she doesn't want to sully the moment, so she moves too, rolls over and straight into Grace’s arms, kissing her in a way that brooks no arguments as to whether she wants to talk about it or not.

"Later," She murmurs against Grace's lips. After that, it takes them another hour to get out of bed.

When they finally do, Grace stands and stretches with a satisfied groan - Dani can't help but appreciate her nudity, the play of her muscles - and starts talking about showering and getting food. It hits Dani: she has no idea, not a one, how to operate with Grace like this in the normal world. She’s used to stolen moments, moments where she's squeezing meaning from every expression, every word, every touch. She’s not used to _time_ , not used to extending those moments into something more three dimensional, something she can fully inhabit and from that position ask, _what comes next?_ , because the truth is...she doesn't know. 

While she's thinking, Grace is exploring, examining the apartment in daylight. It's sparse. She could have had a small house away from HQ, but this small suite of rooms suit her fine. They're far away enough from the office that she feels disconnected from work, but close enough that she can sprint there, or to Ops, if there's an emergency. After a minute, Grace is done poking around: Dani props herself up in bed, sheets collecting round her waist, and watches Grace saunter over to her small en suite shower with an inviting smile cast over a naked shoulder. She stops thinking about them, their situation, and starts thinking about Grace, naked in the shower, and reminds herself: they have _time_ now. 

*

They're sitting on Dani's ratty sofa and she can feel the warmth of the shower under her skin, in her muscles. She feels more relaxed than she has in...well...she's honestly not sure. The nightmares of the previous night feel a long, long way away, cocooned as she is in lethargy and post-sex chemicals. She raises her head from the back of the sofa, cracks open an eye, and smiles: Grace is studying her with a warm frankness that something in Dani responds to, uncoiling in her chest and inhabiting her, making her feel...It takes her a minute to find the words: Content. Happy. 

Once she realises what it is, she's a little shaken. This happiness, it sits within her, calm and immutable and just... _there_. It feels like it's not something that's done battle against her fear and anxiety and constant stress and has taken its place, no...it seems to be the absence of those things, an underlying state that she's just now uncovering, previously hidden. It's just...her, purely her, and Dani finds it unnerving, like she's looking into a mirror and seeing herself without judgement or preconception or conditioning. 

As unnerving as it is, in a split-second, this little feeling becomes precious to her, so precious she can't actually stomach the thought of losing it. She thinks...She and Grace...they've never had this before, the peace of an afterglow, and the longer she sits there, basking in Grace's company like sunshine, the more she feels like she should get up, dress, dash off somewhere because...because this can't last, surely. Maybe the alarm base will ring that they're under attack, or someone will knock on her door with an emergency, or...there are so many ways this could go wrong, and she feels exposed, raw with sudden fear. The disorientation cuts through her content haze like a lightning strike. 

She hides her sudden, stupid anxiety by standing, heading for the small kitchenette and pulling rations from the cupboard, rummaging for the last of the seasons carrots. Soon she's prepping food, cycling through familiar movements to try and calm down, because now, not only is she anxious, she's angry at herself: she feels like it’s unfair for her to be upset in any way when the very thing she’s longed for has happened. It makes _zero_ sense, but Dani just can't stop the commingling of fear, anxiety and anger that's building within her.

“Hmmm,” Grace stands, leans against the wall while Dani works. “I always imagined that the great Commander ate steak and soufflé, not the same rations as the rest of us.”

Dani knows it’s a joke, she does, but she can’t respond in kind, can’t seem to snap out of this. It’s like now that she has a chance at happiness, her mind is rebelling, and she doesn't know why. There’s a slight tremble in her hand as she reaches for a kitchen knife that she hopes Grace won’t notice, a slight tremor in her voice when she says, “No. Rations, just like you.”

She can feel Grace’s hand-prints all over her still, the lethargy of lovemaking informing her every move, and yet there’s a desperate anxiety winding up inside that's filling her with a weird energy that bites through that lethargy, tears through it and leaves her shivering. She clears her throat, eyebrows drawing together as she works, and tries to focus on carrots and dried meat and pearl barley instead of her fear that this will disappear before she has a chance to really _live_ it this time. Her chest feels tight, her breath feels just a little short as panic builds in her lungs.

She can hear Grace is moving forward, presumably to help, and she turns her head away before she reaches her, takes a deep, settling breath, tries to put a smile on her face. Then Grace’s hand is on her shoulder, unexpectedly turning her and pulling her forward, and Dani’s enfolded in lithe arms. 

Her first instinct is to fight - there’s nothing wrong, _nothing goddammit_ \- but arms she raises to push and resist instead cling and pull closer, and to her shame, tears do start to leak from her eyes even as she screws them shut. She makes a last half-hearted resistance, and Grace lets her pull back, but as soon as their eyes meet Dani knows she won’t go, won't leave the circle of Grace's arms. She opens her mouth to explain, to allay Grace’s confusion, but no words come - the only thing she can do is step back into the embrace and cry. 

It’s not a hysterical moment. She’s not sobbing and rending at Grace's clothing and cursing the Gods. It’s a slow release; a draining of a toxin she didn’t even know was poisoning her, and it's leaving her through tears that are inexorable and through deep, hitching breaths. She doesn't know how long it takes to empty the reservoir: she comes back to herself slowly, comes back from wherever she'd gone, knows she could only have gone there because she's safe in Grace's arms. Parts of her body report in one after the other: She feels the stuffiness of her nose, the strain in her feet and back from having stood there for so long, the dryness of her mouth and the strength of the arms around her. 

“I just…” She shakes her head against Grace’s chest, rests her forehead against the other woman and takes a deep breath. She feels lighter than she can remember feeling, empty and calmer, but she can’t find the words to explain what just happened, to herself or to Grace. It’s frustrating. She feels the tiniest amount of embarrassment for the wet stain on the front of Grace's t-shirt, pats it gently, hums an apology.

Grace runs a hand down her back, easing her down from her emotions, and, after a pause during which Dani expects questions, simply leads her over to the couch. It faces away from the kitchenette, so Dani has to twist and lean over the back of it, chin pillowed on crossed arms, to watch as Grace goes back to the carrots and continues Dani’s work, chopping slowly and methodically, occasionally peering back and smiling a small, worried smile. 

Dani's slightly thrown. She expected talking, expected worry and fear and having to unpack whatever this is right away, but this...this silence, this space, is...better. Dani’s heart mends a little with every beat, strengthening and shining as she watches Grace work. She starts to smile back tentatively, feels the smile transfer to the inside of her, warming her like a campfire. 

It’s not until they’re eating that Dani sighs, gathers her strength. “I’m sorry.”

Grace’s demeanour turns fierce in an instant. “You have _nothing_ to be sorry for.” In the following silence, as if embarrassed by the depth of her tone, she half-shrugs, pushes food around her plate. “I just...wish I could help.”

Dani can’t help it: she swears quietly in Spanish. “Oh, Grace…” She reaches across, takes Grace’s hand, squeezes. “You _have_.” 

Dani doesn’t know why, but she can see the glistening start of tears in Grace’s eyes at that. She can’t help it; she puts her fork down and moves around the table, slides sideways into Grace’s lap and kisses her. Grace’s arms come around her waist and it’s not passion, it’s emotion that informs the kiss, that shapes it into something long and delicate. 

“I…” Dani is resting her forehead against Grace’s. As she says the words, she realises the truth of them. “I was...happy. It's been a long time...just me here, I'd...forgotten what that was like. Honestly, I realised...I'm not sure I really believed I would feel that again. I was scared it might go away…that you might...” 

She worries, suddenly, that although she's not saying anything explicit, the feeling behind it...it might be too much and she pulls away, examining Grace’s face. She worries that she’s been waiting so long, she’s now putting too much on Grace too fast: she genuinely can't tell, she has no perspective here. But Grace is staring at her, lips parted, gaze darting from eyes to mouth and back, looking slightly confused, like she’s trying to work something out, and then she’s pulling Dani forward and their lips connect, emotions sparking like fireworks. 

“I get it,” is all Grace says. 

*

So...Yes. They’re _happy_. Dani genuinely doesn’t know how to compute that at least fifty percent of the time. For a long time, she picks at the happiness she feels, looks for loopholes, looking for 'yes, buts', looking for anything that might trip them up. It takes time for her to relax into it, to not worry that every time she goes to bed, it'll be gone when she wakes up. 

So, she'll accept that for now, she gets this: the well-spring of joy that erupts whenever she sees or thinks of Grace, pushing a smile into the muscles of her cheeks that often she has to suppress until she’s away from command staff or soldiers, lest it shatter the facade of cold, efficient Commander Ramos. It's a smile that can spring up at completely inappropriate times, warming her, consuming her: ditto the arousal that can flood her at a moments notice when she thinks of them in bed, on her sofa, on her desk. 

She gets the illicit thrill of Grace coming to her office on “business” with a file that may or may not contain a thoughtlessly grabbed handful of random paper and them retreating to her sanctum, or, in one case, Grace stalking her back to her desk. This time she’s careful to remove the intercom before they go too far, hopping off the desk and unplugging it mid-kiss in a way that makes Grace laugh joyfully. It's some of the best sex they've had yet.

She gets dinners, and breakfasts, working lunches that devolve into making out. She feels like a teenager around Grace. It’s delightfully disconcerting that after years of putting up barriers, Grace has planted herself on the other side of them with an ease that astounds her. 

She gets to see a Grace free of fear, of pain, and every time she gets to see Grace in a relaxed, unguarded moment, she feels like she’s learning a little bit more about this woman she thought she knew. The figure in her mind - the one she'd built over the years around a paper thin understanding - is torn down, rebuilt with the knowledge she's gleaning from their time together, rounded and complete.

She finds out that Grace loves blueberries and hates all citrus fruits; remembers and lusts after popcorn, but doesn’t miss burgers that much (Dani considers commandeering some corn to make Grace popcorn, but...it’s needed for much more important things, as much as she wants to do it). Grace remembers the internet and TV, but doesn’t remember pop culture the same way Dani does: Grace was young when everything stopped - she remembers the Disney channel and Taylor Swift, and sometimes, when she feels really safe, hums half-remembered songs from Frozen in the shower. 

It’s the beautiful mundanity of these facts, these moments, that gets to Dani sometimes. She always, always hoped she’d get Grace back, but that's not what's happened. At all. She hasn’t regained something she lost, she’s gained something she never had, and it’s so, so much better. It's not the tragically short, pressurised container of a relationship she somehow assumed it might be: it feels like, well, a long-term thing.

But...Long-term is the problem though, right? They don’t have it, and Dani knows that. Grace...she’s very happy. Dani can see it pouring out of her in every look, every touch, and Dani knows it’s because she thinks they can have _this_ for longer than a night, or a week, or a month. In her darker moments, it kills Dani to think that they can’t. So, for now...She doesn't dwell on that, doesn't think about it, pushes it away from herself as hard as she can because...no, just no. 

She wants to enjoy this, for now. 

*

The first time Grace has to go out on a mission after they start their relationship, Dani very, very nearly uses her power to reassign her to a HQ-based role. She thinks about it for a week before-hand, even finds herself heading toward her barracks to have a word with Grace's C.O, but turns back before she’s even half-way there. She’s plagued by the idea that maybe she did in FuturePast-Grace’s past, that maybe if she doesn’t Grace will get injured or worse, but she just _can’t_. She knows, deep down, that Grace would never forgive her: that as much as they’re a thing, Grace is devoted to her unit, her fellow soldiers, and would never want to let them down. 

They have lunch together the day before, sitting in silence until Grace looks up, eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together until they're pale, but whatever words she has they're trapped behind those lips, stuck. 

"It's okay," Dani says, reaching across the table and taking her hand. "You'll be back soon. And I'm not going anywhere." 

Grace is watching her with a trust and a depth of feeling that Dani experiences in her chest, and she nods, looking like she lets go of a little of her tension with each breath until her mouth unlocks. "I know. I...It's stupid. I'll be gone for three days but...I'll miss you." 

She looks down, as if that's an embarrassing admission, as if it's somehow childish or needy, but Dani doesn't think it's any of those things because if she's honest with herself, she feels very much the same way. "Me too," She says. 

Grace looks up at her and smiles. 

*

After that, they'd agreed not to see each other until Grace returned - the expedition leaves _early_ , so they'd taken their time saying goodbye after lunch, and Grace had torn herself away, heading for her barracks. They’d both agreed it was best that Grace didn't lose sleep before shipping out by spending the night with Dani; that she's as fresh as she can be, as on her game as possible. It's ironic, though, because now Dani is lying on her bed, and it's so late, but...she can't sleep. She's wearing a vest and cotton sleeping shorts, hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. She knows she should at least _try_ to sleep, but she also knows how much of an impossibility that is when Grace is heading into danger in a few hours. 

The knock on her door takes her by surprise, but there's only one person she hopes is on the other side of it. She gets out of bed, her heart thumping, ears ringing. When Dani opens the door and Grace is there, biting her lip, eyes wide, shaking her head and saying, “I couldn’t...not without seeing you again…”, they barely make it to her sofa, kissing with a desperate fierceness that shakes Dani, leaves her raw and trembling as clothes are discarded as they tumble onto the worn cushions.

*

She’s distracted the next day, and makes sure only to work through admin paperwork. She has the option of going to Ops, monitoring the sortie from there - and it's what she would normally do, she's known for being hands-on with every operation - but she doesn't trust herself to keep level, not until she used to Grace going out now that there's...something between them, finally. She feels like she's lost equilibrium between herself and her job, and so she removes herself slightly from the situation, leaving it in Peralta's capable hands. She keeps telling herself - no matter who it is she can't worry about just _one_ soldier. Not when there are so many out there, fighting and dying. She keeps this on repeat in her mind, trying to regain her perspective, but every now and again thoughts of Grace peek through. 

What happens next makes her realise...Peralta _knows_ , somehow. He should be in Ops, managing the days events, but he knocks and enters in the same movement, bringing her some of the upcoming battle-plans they’ve been working on. She's confused, takes them and asks, "Shouldn't you be in Ops, Peralta?", as she fingers through the assembled files. Then, tucked in at the bottom is the latest sit-rep for Grace’s unit. 

Once she realises what it is, she glances up at him sharply. She knows her face is a mask - she’s gotten good at it over the years, this stoic Commander thing - but Jake just shrugs, a half-smile on his face. “You’d be useless all day otherwise. Sir.” He says, adding the honorific almost as an after-thought. He’s always been a little dismissive of authority, but he’s loyal as hell, smart, intuitive and a damn good XO. 

Dani raises an eyebrow at him, but bends her head, examines it anyway, devouring the information. Everything seems fine, and the band of fear around her chest eases. She puts the report in a pile of others, as if it’s not that important to her, but as Jake turns to leave, she says, “Peralta...thanks." He salutes, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he turns, heading back to where he should be. She almost-smiles back, but they're working and the military-esque bearing they've cultivated doesn't allow banter right now. She knows he knows she's grateful, anyway. 

*

It’s a short op - Grace is back tomorrow, a fact Dani is grateful for after another sleepless night. Despite the reports from Peralta detailing an operation that's going as smoothly as it should, she hasn’t had this much trouble keeping her mind on work...ever, that she can remember. Still, there are supply lines to arrange and fronts to push and research to do. Using work as a distraction actually seems to make her a little more productive, and the second day passes in a blur of decisions, meetings, visits and cadet training. 

The day of Grace's return, she feels a fission of excitement building in her belly from the minute she's awake. She knows, logically, that she can’t compromise the standards of her work; that not even this should be pulling her focus away from it. For that reason, she makes sure that she’s not near the barracks when they’re scheduled to return - she’s on the other side of the base, in the warehouse they keep the models they've caught, stripped and broken down for study, keeping a promise to her R&D team to tell them everything she can remember about the Rev-2 so that she and they can help plan effective counter-measures. 

Still, even as she’s giving evidence about her encounter with it, even as she’s pulling every last detail from her mind, knowing it could save someone’s life, a part of her is monitoring the time so closely that it seems to be moving at a snails pace, the seconds ticking by with painful slowness. 

It’s the end of the day, approaching 18:00: She knows this is exactly when her soldiers are due back to base, and as that time passes, she breaths a little easier. Time however, seems to move slower still when she knows that Grace’s boots should be back on home turf, that the other woman is _here_ , within reach. 

Still, she’s a professional, a Commander, and a very, very busy one; It’s nearly 18:40 when she heads back to HQ, stopping by her office to pick up some folders before heading home, because she’s not going to rush dammit and-

The knock on her door actually makes her - the battle-hardened warrior - jump, as keyed up as she is. She so wants blonde hair to appear - When she sees Peralta’s head peer round the door, she can't stop the sinking disappointment she feels. She waves him in, and studies him, and her face falls: she’s known him too long not to know when he’s got bad news. Her heart literally feels like it contracts, leaving her dizzy for a moment.

He can’t hide his momentary confusion at seeing her here. “Ramos...I thought you’d be...” He trails off, and Dani’s suspicions are confirmed - The dizziness intensifies, but she dismisses it, retreating into the Commander in an instant, drawing herself up, armoring herself in the steel persona. “Peralta. Report.”

He pauses for just an instant, an instant that frustrates her instantly and deeply. She grits her teeth, shakes her head, expels a breath that seems to come up from her toes and travel through her, leaving nothing but a fierce, desperate anger in its wake. “ _Tell_ me.” 

He straightens. “Ma’am,” Dani doesn’t miss the hard swallow. “They were hit on the way home. Reports confirm two casualties.” The depth of her response shakes her, shakes even the Commander mask she’s wearing: she feels her lip tremble, her eyelid flutter, before she nods. “Understood. Names?” And _fuck_ , why wasn't she in Ops? Why wasn't she monitoring this? She feels like by trying not to show favouritism, she's failed in her job, and failure and fear mix within her, leaving her nauseous. _Fuck_.

“Not yet. They got held up, only just arrived home. I thought you’d be down there already, just in case it’s-” 

“ _Jake_ ,” In order for her to maintain any semblance of control, she needs to keep distance from the idea that she...that Grace... “Dismissed.” 

She’s already moving, dropping her files on the desk, heading for the door, brushing past him. She doesn’t hear if he says anything in reply. 

She’s rushing, head down, moving from a walk to a lope to a jog. She knows it’s too fast for the hallways, knows she’s drawing stares, but puts her head down and speeds up. She has to get there, has to know. It can’t end like this, it can’t, not when it’s just started...and now comes the guilt, the fact that she wasn’t there to great them when they arrived, that she didn’t keep informed, didn't _know_ and- 

It's happened before, a soft-hard roadblock of a body stopping her in her tracks, and then she’s tangled in someone’s arms. She’s moving to get around them without thinking, a knee-jerk apology unconsciously passing her lips, before they grab her and it’s someone smelling of gunfire and dirt and sweat, and there’s blonde hair in her peripheral vision…

“Dani!” And on hearing that voice...just like that she’s back to herself, her fear shattering into a million pieces that reform as joy and shock and hope, eyes snapping up to Grace’s face, hands following, cupping Grace’s face before she can stop herself. The other woman is covered in crap and there’s blood, dried and streaked on her face and spiking her hair, but she’s _here_. 

Dani can only breath and stare for a moment, eyes searching for injury, fingers relaying the truth of her presence through the sensation of skin under her fingertips. _“Grace.”_

Then she’s grabbing her hand, pulling her through the nearest door, wrapping a hand around the back of Grace’s neck and pulling her down into a kiss that finally, finally settles her into the reality that Grace is here, she’s not dead, and-

The cough takes her by surprised. She stares at the man behind his desk glassily before blinking as her brain reboots. “Oh...Martin...this isn’t my office…?” She manages.

“No, Commander,” She knows Stein, of course - her top R&D man - and can see he’s hiding a smile. “However...Might I suggest that this might be an opportune moment for me to take a break and see what laughable excuse for coffee the mess-hall is serving these days?” 

And with that he’s gone and they’re staring at each other. It’s Grace who breaks first, face forming a smile under the grime. Dani feels it mirrored on her own face, feels a relieved laugh burst out her, one that carries all the adrenaline and panic she feels out of her and into the air around them. 

“Grace,” Dani says when they've calmed down, and she's taking Grace's hand. She wants to pull them toward the door, wants to have every intention of heading for her rooms, of cleaning Grace up, of taking care of her, of grieving with her in private. But she knows she can't. Grace confirms it. 

“I…” Grace is shaking her head. “I sort of...abandoned the post-mission briefing. To find you. I…” She stops, shrugs, clearly stuck on how to vocalise the why. 

And suddenly Dani can see it, written all over Grace in a language she's finally fluent in, Grace's expression the Rosetta Stone she needs to understand. She can see the difficulty she has explaining her feelings, the effort it takes to try and put this whatever-they-have into words and failing because it’s just _too big_. She can see Grace's feelings, spilling out through eyes and words and touch. She can see it, and it's the moment she realises - this is _real_ to Grace. As real to her as it is to Dani. Grace is showing her in another way, too: she understands how big of a thing it is to leave your squad after something like this, to break protocol when she should be grieving with her team-mates and stowing equipment and going to medical and a hundred other things rather than being here, now. Her heart both breaks for Grace and swells with the knowledge that Grace's first thought was _her_. 

She caresses Grace’s cheek, stretches up and kisses her, soft and slow, then rocks back onto her heels. “You’d better re-join your squad. You've all...had a loss, and I'm...I'm so sorry, Grace," She sees Grace swallow hard and grasps her hand, squeezing tight, feels the same sense of loss swirling in her own belly. "I'll be heading there too shortly, I need to talk to the mission leader. I want to know what happened out there." 

Grace's eyes roam her face, and she nods and turns. With one hand on the doorknob, she glances back. “See you later?” 

The joy in that thought despite the sadness surrounding them, the underlying hope in Grace’s voice...it all makes Dani’s heart leap and thud and roll in her chest. “Of course. I’ll be waiting.” 

It’s what she does best, after all. 

*


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in posting this chapter: I hope you enjoy :)

Over the next few months, Dani collects moments in their relationship, things that dig into her heart and fill her with happiness, points of light in a life darkened by Machine presence. Their first ‘date’ - at Grace’s insistence - is one moment she'll definitely remember. 

She only agrees to it because Grace seems so animated when she officially 'asks her out' - it's cute and rushed and Dani can't help but say yes, despite the fact that they've been together for half a year and practically live together at this point. But, Grace got the idea in her head, and she's excited by it: truth be told the excitement builds in Dani as well as the assigned evening draws closer. It is, though, tempered by mild annoyance at the fact that Grace won’t tell her what she has planned (as the woman at the top of the tree, she doesn’t like - and very much isn’t used to - being kept in the dark), but it's there and it grows as the day draws nearer. 

On the day, she ends up channeling that annoyance and excitement - and her sudden nerves - into a worry about, of all things, what to wear. It’s not like she has a lot of options; it’s pretty much cargo pants and a vest, or her uniform. Still, she digs out the least worn items she has, irons them, and when she can't worry about that anymore, she channels that energy into worrying about her appearance instead. She takes the time - _so much time, Lord_ \- to unbraid her hair and leave it that way. She’s so used to unbraiding her hair only long enough to give her scalp a rest before re-braiding, it feels odd to let her hair flow. It’s kinked and wavy from being braided for so long, and she pins it away from her face. 

In the world they live in, vanity feels odd, like an unused muscle. As she peers at herself in the mirror, looking at herself with her hair down almost reminds her of prepping for a night out when she was younger. It feels like thinking about another world: the memory of preparing before a night out feels surreal. She tries to remember what she looked like with eye-liner, foundation, blusher, lipstick, and finds the idea bizarre now; finds the idea of all that time spent wasteful. She likes the shape and the strength of her face, bare and clean as it is. 

Embarrassingly, she finds she’s ready far too early, like an overeager teenager, and she tells herself off and pretends that she's not excited...all the while waiting impatiently for the knock at the door. She berates herself: this is _Grace_ , for fucks sake - it's not like they're strangers on a first date. Despite all of her logic though...When the knock comes, it feels like her heart literally leaps, pounding once, twice, before it feels like it settles into a humming-bird fast rhythm in her chest. She takes deep breaths, reminds herself she's an adult, a leader, a warrior, but...the excitement inside her refuses to abate. So, annoyed with herself, she takes one more deep breath and retreats into her only defence: she puts on her best stoic ‘Commander’ face, and opens the door. 

“Is everything okay?” Is Grace’s immediate reaction when she takes in Dani's dour presence. 

Dani blinks, and lets up on the stern demenour with a jolt. “Yes! Of course, I…” She's chagrined and annoyed with herself and a million other feelings. She looks at Grace, at the worry in her expression, and she can’t help but chuckle at herself and shake her head. “I...sorry. Everything’s fine. Really.”

It’s then she really takes Grace in, and her heart does more medically-impossible manoeuvres within her. Like her, Grace has dug out the least damaged of her clothing. She’s wearing honest-to-goodness 501’s, a splash of blue in their world of khaki and olive and green and grey, and they are molded to Grace’s shape in a way that Dani appreciates. Wearing those and a vest and a jacket, with her hair washed and combed back, shining golden in the crap lighting of the hallway, Grace is the most beautiful thing Dani’s ever seen. 

Grace misinterprets Dani's inspection and looks down at her feet, "I must've left my LBD in my other barracks," she murmurs, half-shrugging. There's a pained defensiveness that Dani hates. 

"No!" She blurts, taking Grace's hand, squeezing it to make her point. "I was thinking -" She's feeling vulnerable, doesn't know how to say it except straight up " - I was thinking you are beautiful. Just as yourself." 

When Grace doesn't answer straight away, she worries she's made the moment awkward. She takes a moment, drops Grace's hand, blinks down at her feet while her emotions settle, and when she looks up, Grace is staring. “Thank you. You are..I mean...You too. And your hair…” She murmurs, reaching out a hand slowly and running a lock through her fingers. The back of her finger grazes Dani’s cheek, and she shudders. Grace bites her lip, and Dani knows if they don’t leave now, they never will. 

“What…” Her voice is slightly hoarse, and she tries again. “What did you have planned?” 

The moment’s broken - Dani feels its loss even though she broke it deliberately. Grace shakes her head, coming back to herself, and she grins, wide and slightly devilish. “You’ll see,” Is all she will say. 

*

Grace has found the shell of an old building on the outskirts of the habitable area of the camp. Dani's walked past it before, but it's in a row of similarly run-down houses, and she's never paid attention to it individually. She does now, as Grace takes her hand and leads her through a hole where the door used to be. Sturdy walls tower around them, but the inside of the structure is gone, as is the roof - it's just four walls surrounding a secret inner garden where life has found a way to reclaim the concrete and steel and brick. Ivy and roses and plants Dani has no name for climb through window-frames and up the inner walls, creating a mosaic of colour and texture and smell. It's beautiful, and utterly enchanting. Grace has found the nearest equivilant to a quilted blanket and a picnic basket (okay, so it’s a standard issue blanket and food collected in an old shopping basket, but Dani gets the idea) and has placed candles through-out the ruin, making shadows dance through climbing leaves. Dani can’t help but ask if it’s safe, to which Grace laughs, beautiful in the candle-light. The whole thing is beautiful in a way that makes Dani's heart swell, makes her feel full and loved. 

The date, though? It’s an absolute disaster. 

It starts well enough, with home-made liquor and Grace's terrible sandwiches - Dani will never understand how you can get sandwiches wrong, but Grace found a way, somehow, and they laugh about it under the stars - but eventually the topic falls round to the new Rev model and then Legion and then somehow they end up arguing about tactics and machine warfare and equipment. They differ in points of view, and the evening goes from sweet to strained in an instant. The fear they have for each other swamps them from nowhere; suddenly bleeds out over everything, staining the date red and panicked. 

Dani ends up storming out of the ruined building. She’s angry - with herself, with Grace, but mostly with this damn world, where even a moment of happiness gets fractured by even the mention of fucking Machines. She’s halfway down the street when she finds her arm grabbed, her flight halted. She turns, still angry, but Grace’s stammered apology, a fractured explanation as to her behaviour...As she listens, as she calms, Dani finds it mirrored in her own feelings. Grace’s words create a sympathetic resonance within her and when she tries to explain it, explain her fear and feelings and frustrations, she finds words inadequate to express it all. Somehow, though, Grace understands her tangled tongue, kissing her silent when she would spin out. The date ends pretty well after that. 

They even try a second one, a month later, with the understanding that the conversation does not cover any kind of machine. It’s a lot more succesful. They lie on the itchy blanket in the ruins of the building, talking and laughing, and Dani realises - Grace is _funny_ in a way that warms Dani, makes her feel joyful and open. Dani feels like she’ll remember Grace laughing on a blanket in candle-light till the end of her days, the beauty of the moment indelibly inked onto her brain. 

*

It’s Jake who comments on their dates, of course. He makes some lame joke to start with, but Dani gives him a long, slow stare and he shakes his head, grinning. “I’m just happy for you, Commander,” he says. “You deserve it.” 

Dani sighs and shakes her head, hiding a smile. “Is it common knowledge?”

“That the woman in command of the human race sneaks into a ruined building for sexy-times with her girlfriend? Nooo.” 

“Jake!” Dani’s horrified - is _this_ how people see her now? But Peralta’s laughing. She always forgets - for as reliable and dependable as he is, if they’re not in immediate danger or working on a problem, he can be an _asshole_. 

“Okay, okay,” He raises his hands in surrender. “It's...not unknown that you're with Corporal Maxwell. Only a few of us know the other part. Diaz and Villanueva saw you headed that way, and they know how to keep a secret.” 

“Except, apparently, from you.” 

“It’s my devellish charm, Commander. They can’t resist.” 

She’s missed this, his banter, the feeling like just for a second they can breath outside the shit-show that is their Machine-dominated existence. It’s a feeling that she only gets with a few people, and it’s precious. She smiles. “Mmm hmm. Sure. Well, just try and keep it on the quiet, okay?” 

He nods, and smiles, and then gets back to work. 

*

It's not all candle-light and picnics. In the background, R&D keep working on augmentation. She can’t afford for them _not_ too. If - _if_ \- everything happens like it did before, she needs the augmentation that’s available to be as good as it was for Grace the first time. The fact that she’s condoning a thing that will cut into Grace, will take her to peices and re-build her as something...other...well, it cuts into her, starts to keep her up at night. She tries not to think about it. Focuses instead on Grace herself; their dates, her jokes, her presence.

It’s funny, she muses, watching Grace read one evening in her rooms - before, she missed FuturePast-Grace, the weight of her, her scars, her presence. Now-Grace seemed...incomplete, somehow. Now, the thought of this Grace being augmented and changed...it sets a darkness off in Dani’s stomach, brings a weight down upon her that she finds harder and harder to shake off. It's the reason she’s been ignoring the augmentation programme for the last few months, as she and Grace have grown closer. She doesn’t think it’s deliberate - she just...didn’t want to think about _that_ when she has Grace here and now and whole and human. 

But the programme has been ticking away without her, reverse engineering Machine tech, making it smaller, making it viable. The first iteration of the idea, presented to her months ago, saw them build external exo-frames to enhance strength and speed. Dani hated having to do it, but she reminded them of the original brief, pushed for more and got it, and now...now they’re ready for human trials. 

The thought horrifies her, honestly, but she knows it’s necessary. Jake, however, isn’t sold. Hasn't been since the start, hasn't really understood where she got the idea from and why she's pushing it, why the external eco-frames weren't good enough, and his feelings are coming to a head. When Stein comes to them and suggests asking veterans with long-term, life-changing injuries to volunteer, it’s all she can do to get him out of the office before Jake explodes. 

“Are you _serious_?” He’s yelling, even as the door closes on Stein. “‘Human trials’! Like we’re lab rats! Are you fucking serious!” 

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?” She fires back, standing and planting her hands on the desk. She’s tired, and she hates this, and there’s a little, non-stop voice in her head that’s screaming day in and day out about all of it: the choices she has to make, the horror of the idea of these things, but this...this is _necessary_ , goddammit. 

“Have you forgotten who you are?” He fires back. “The leader of Humanity. _Humanity_!” He’s pacing, tugging at his hair. “You're suggested making us...Machines!”

“No!” She will not have it described that way. Not ever. She won’t. She can’t. “Augmented human soldiers! Not Machines. Never _Machines_!” 

“Explain to me the fucking difference!” 

There’s a noise in the hallway, and Dani signals for silence; despite his anger, he aquiesces, and stalks into her sanctum stiff-backed with steps that signal that this isn’t done, not by a long shot. 

She shuts the door behind them and even as she’s turning back to him, he’s saying, “Jesus Christ, Dani. You want to turn us into them? I can understand why this isn't common fucking knowledge - there'd be fucking riots! Can you imagine how people are going to feel!” And there’s a world of weight and worry and fury in those words; it echoes how she feels deep down so exactly that it makes her even more angry with the situation and, futilely, with herself. He's right: Theres a reason that knowledge of the Augmentation programme has been restricted to a very few members of senior staff; why Stein's R&D all signed NDA's; why no-one else knows what they're doing.

“Yes, of course I can!" She’s trying to keep her cool, trying so hard - she needs him on board with this, because she needs to know that she's doing the right thing and he's always been like a moral compass. “Listen to me, Jake. It’s going to help. It’s going to help us win, I promise.”

“How can you promise that!” He’s so upset, she’s never seen him like this. “And now you want to take someone who’s already given _everything_ and...what? Take a little more? Make them a monster? Fuck!”

“No!” God, _no_. “We’ll ask people - _ask_ , Jake! - to volunteer for this. We would never, _ever_ force anyone, how can you think that?” She can see it’s because he’s beyond reason, but still, she’s getting angry too. 

“I don’t know what to think, Dani! I don’t. If you think this is a good idea, how far are you willing to go?!” Dani’s heart breaks, then. That question, it shatters her for a second: the pain, the fear, the anger in his voice. “I just...I can’t believe it, Dani! You’re going to ask people to put the very things that are killing us inside them?! What are you _doing_?!” 

“What I _had_ to do!” She spits back, anger coming to life like a generator firing up, filling her with red hot energy. “You have no idea, Jake! _None_! No idea at all! You think I _wanted_ to do this? Wanted to be in charge of something like this? Fuck you!” 

And it’s all coming out, now. Everything she’s every repressed, every bit of self-hate she’s accrued during every second since she’s founded the augmentation programme, it’s filling her words like gunpowder fills a bullet, explosive and volatile, fire and fury and frustration intermingled. 

“You think I want to be the Commander that does this?! You ask me how I _know_! I _had_ to do this, I had to, because otherwise she...I…” She’s so angry that she can’t see, can’t think - it’s just a haze, an unstoppable force. It has to go somewhere: she can’t stop herself swinging at the punch-bag, any more than she can stop the words flowing out from her, escaping her, taking some of their poison with them. 

“If I don’t!” She swings. “We die!” Her fists thump into the bag, rage poured into punches that slap against the worn leather. “You die! I die! We all fucking _die_! Everything we’ve built is just fucking gone! I know it has to happen because I've _seen_ one, okay!” She’s hitting the bag so hard her wrists hurt, her the skin on her knuckles splits, blood stains the matting under her feet. “The machines will win if I don't do this...to...to...” And then she’s yelling in Spanish that devolves into wordless, agonised noise at the sheer unfairness of it all, until Peralta is grabbing her arms, pulling her away from the bag, holding her as she struggles instinctively, until she comes back to herself. 

She’s panting, can’t bring herself to look at him for a good minute. She feels...un-done, a little. Like something she’d carefully packed away is strewn across the floor, pieces of herself tumbled and torn that he can pick up and examine and judge. 

When she does look up, he’s staring, but it’s calmer, filled with confusion. There’s still trust there, thank God. “I think you’d better start from the beginning.” He says, sitting on her sofa, running his hands through his hair, looking unsettled and unsure.

So she does. 

*

She’s never told the story from start to finish before, but she does now, sweating and bloody and emotional on her ratty sanctum couch. She tells it haltingly at first, but picks up speed as she goes. She re-lives it from the start, from the factory all the way to the dam and beyond, stumbling only as she describes the final fight. She omits Grace’s name, but thinks Jake knows in the way his hand lands on her knee, his eyes soften, how he doesn’t ask for more detail when she skates over what happens to the person she just calls 'Her protector' at the end. 

Then, for the very first time, even to herself, she describes the waiting. The uncertainty of her future. Of doing her best, but always subconsciously aware that she might have to engineer the whole thing, to make sure that she ends up in the future that’s meant to be by creating the thing that goes to the past. She even shares with him something she’s only ever discussed with Sarah - that maybe this is her fault. That maybe Legion wouldn’t have build such destructive machines if they hadn’t of left Carl and the Rev-9 there to be documented. 

The first thing he latches on to, of course, is time travel. Once he's accepted it, he throws out theory after theory - they could find out who builds Legion, and stop them; they could find Legion in its infancy, and stop it; they could go back and destroy the terminator production facilities before they get off the ground. This is part of what she loves about him - this relentless optimism, the font of ideas. 

“Why the hell haven’t we been fixating on this?” He asks at one point, genuinely confused. She shakes her head. 

“Stein's team...they've never been able to crack it. Maybe we're not the ones that do,” She says, and if she thinks too hard about it, her head will hurt - she doesn't want to think about machines getting there first. 

He shakes his head, “But do you _know_ that?” and the truth is, she doesn’t. She knows the little Grace told her about it, and the little that Sarah told her about how it was in the ‘original’ timeline, and that’s it. 

Maybe it’s time push a little harder on that, she thinks. 

*

She goes home that night, feeling lighter than she has in a long time. She’s in the bath when Grace lets herself in, soaking some of the aches from her arms and shoulders in the old tub, taking comfort from the surrounding warmth of the water, and when Grace stands in the doorway, smiling at her, she feels simultaneously buoyant yet sad. She knows that she’ll have to have the same conversation with Grace, one day soon, but that when she does, everything will change. She’s not ready for that - selfishly, desperately not ready. Not yet. 

So she smiles, and lifts herself out of the water, standing naked and steaming in the cold air. Grace cocks her head, blinking as she takes in the nakedness, and Dani finds it adorable that there's a faint blush on her cheeks even as her eyes darken and she steps into the room, closing the door behind her.

*

The next day, she instructs Stein and his team to start looking into time travel more thoroughly, authorises Stein to request the transfer to his team of anyone he feels is necessary, and, with a heavy heart, she also authorises them to approach certain personnel regarding the possibility of human trials. 

Before that, though, she sits down with Jake and two other senior staff members, and they work out a brief on _who_ Stein can approach, and it’s very, very strict. Still, within the week, Stein has volunteers from the veteran hospital, and the trials begin. 

The first one...the first one doesn’t go well, and it’s all Dani can do to keep her food down when she reads the file. She feels her reality - the fact that she, and only she can be responsible for this, for the things they’re doing, settle a little further on her, making her breathless. She closes the file with a snap, puts it on her desk and takes deep breaths, settling herself, wishing for the thousanth time that her life could be her and Grace and no Machines, no war. 

But it can’t. It’s _this_ , and she’s doing the best she can. 

*

Grace is the thing that keeps her sane. What they have continues to surprise her - _Grace_ continues to surprise her. She knew the strength of the woman; had seen what she was capable of in the heat of battle. Now, she’s getting to know the _depth_ of her, and what she’s capable of in the everyday moment. She's incredible, and as the months pass, the feelings within Dani for Grace never waver. 

When they argue, she doesn’t doubt they’ll make up. When they’re apart, she believes with everything she has that they’ll make it back to each other. 

When she’s on her own, the only thing she can liken it to is a magnet - there’s a pull inside her all the time that’s never sated unless Grace is in proximity. They’re happy, settled in each other in a way that Dani never really believed would happen until it did, always waiting as she was for the other shoe to drop. 

Waking up with Grace is a delight. Eating breakfast with her is a joy. Over the next couple of months, she can see that there’s a language that develops between them, of glance and touch and breath, that feels both universal and deeply private, an intimate thing that binds them, gives her strength and fills her to the brim with...hope? Happiness? Love? A combination? She doesn’t know. 

She just knows that she loves every second of it. 

*

She starts to believe, maybe, that there’ll be a way to get through this. That maybe the FuturePast of it all isn’t as written in stone as she thought (and Peralta’s enthusiam for time travel loopholes and theories maybe starts to give her hope)...but even as she that realisation crystallises, time moves forward - more Rev models appear. The Machines start a counter-offensive that nearly loses their grip in the west. 

Her happiness, this thing that lives within her now, that pulses when Grace looks at her, or laughs, or enters a room, it becomes the most important thing. She never thought she’d put anything above her duty, but now...she’s not so sure. 

It’s that thought that leads her to work a little harder on not only beating back Legion’s forces, but beating Legion itself. She starts calling more meetings between her top staff, asking for options, requiring more intelligence from her scouts. She becomes obsessed with trying to defeat Legion before she has to send Grace back. 

Problem is, they’ve never had much luck pinning Legion down. The advent of server farms before the crash, and the fact that Legion could and did take over, well, all of them as far as Dani has been able to tell, means that Legion’s ‘brain’ has back-up upon back-up upon back-up. It’s been suggested, too, that the capabilities of Legion are increasing because the server farms aren’t simply dormant back-ups; Legion, some say, is learning from itself, using server farms like parallel brains, learning and feeding off each other. It’s a disturbing thought.

Either way, the idea of them being able to find and destroy every server farm ever created just in case Legion is ‘there’ is an impossible dream - they neither have the resources, nor the intel to do it. So, Dani concentrates on what they do have the resources and intel to do - weakening Legion. Destorying production facilities. Taking out the server farms they can reach. Destroying what they can. 

She starts working late, leaving early, feeling low grade nauseous all the time. It doesn’t take long for Grace to notice, but Dani waves her away the first time she asks, and the second, and the third: she’s lost, trying to save someone who doesn’t know they need saving, and she doesn't know how to slow down. 

She forgets to eat, loses weight and Grace starts waking in the night to find her sitting at the table, pouring over files. It lasts until Grace takes her to the ruined house, sits her down on the blanket in the candle light, and asks her point blank what’s wrong. 

Dani stares for a long, long moment, at the candle-lit shadows playing on Grace’s face, at the look of concern in her eyes, at the strength in long, lean arms and shoulders. She can feel the whole story lining itself up, word after word, on her tongue, longing to escape, longing to gift Grace with understanding of the whole. 

She knows that holding it all back is an awful choice, but...what they have is so pure. It’s a ray of light for her in a dark world, and Dani does not want that light to dim. She flashes back to the file of test cases for augmentation - the failures, the photos, the reports - and feels the words on her tongue retreat, swallowing them one by one until they weigh heavy in her stomach. 

“I want the world to be safe for you,” is all she can say, and she means it with every fibre of her being. “And I’m the one who can make that happen.” 

“Not if you work yourself to death,” Grace murmurs. “And then...if you did...” She stops. There’s a mist in her eyes, a look on her face, that says she doesn’t know how to say what she’s feeling, and Dani’s heart beats tremulously. 

Grace is cupping her face, and they’re staring at each other. They’ve never actually said it, but here and now, how can she not, when it’s so self-evident? When it’s so _true_? 

“I’m...I’m in love with you,” Dani says, feeling it fill her from toes to temple. 

“Dani…” Grace breaths out her name, a smile growing on her face that showcases everything she’s feeling, and she's awkward and adorable and Dani couldn't love her more if she tried. "Me, too...I mean...I love you, too." 

And then she’s being kissed, under the stars in candlelight. 

*  
A month or two after that, Dani has to tour the coastal facilities, and oversee their push to re-take Chicago. It’s going to be a long trip, and a dangerous one, and they argue - repeatedly - about Grace going with her. 

Dani doesn’t want her to. Well, that’s a lie - Dani _desperately_ wants her to, but doesn’t want her to be in any danger (given their lives, the sentiment is laughable - any _more_ danger is way more accurate). That’s the point Grace argues, and argues, until Dani can’t take it any more. 

“Dani, you know it makes sense!” Grace is saying - almost yelling - as they fight about it again the night before Dani is set to leave. Grace's desire to follow her...It tells her more about how Grace feels about her than words could, knowing how devoted Grace is to her team, her squadmates. The fact that she'd willingly leave them...it says a lot. 

“Grace…” Dani doesn’t know what to say. Watching the woman she loves; her grace as she stalks the room angrily, the power in her clenched fists and clenched jaw...Dani wants to see her everyday, doesn’t want to leave her behind, but it’s so dangerous, and here is, relatively, speaking, _safe_. 

“I won’t sign the transfer papers,” she says again. “You’re part of a team; you should respect that.” 

“And you should respect that I should be with you - protecting _you!_ ” Grace fires back, and Dani’s so done with this fight, so frustrated. 

“After everything you’ve done for me, just let me keep you safe!” She blurts. And there it is, suddenly exposed to her own understanding - the driving force of her behaviour, the crux of her issue. Grace has put - will put - in the time, she’s done - will do - the work, she’s been - will be - strong and brave and all the things Dani will need. She just wants to pay that back somehow, to give Grace a modicum of peace and security until it all goes wrong. 

There’s silence, for a moment. Grace looks like she’s trying to figure out her words, and Dani’s trying to figure out how to take them back, and she says, “I mean... I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. Please,” She takes Grace’s hands, “Don’t put yourself in danger for me.” Again, she adds mentally, praying for Grace to somehow understand.

Grace is silent for a moment, and then she nods, just once. 

*

Grace stays. She doesn’t like it, but she does, and they spend their last day and night together alternating between the bed and the sofa, making love and talking, and just when Dani feels like she understands every level of their relationship, she finds that there’s a new one, a new pattern to their behaviour, a new depth of intimacy to enjoy. 

Leaving is genuinely one of the shittiest things that she's had to do in a long time, and it takes days for the feeling of loss in her chest to stop being the dominant feeling she has. As the tour progresses, she realises: she doesn't have time to keep omitting the truth, and she doesn't _want_ to, either. She wants them to be together fully, one hundred percent honestly, and that means telling Grace the whole story. She's tired of feeling like there's a part of her she's holding back; like she's not there, committed, all in, and she wants to be honest with Grace more than anything.

Once she's decided this, the sense of peace she feels tells her that she's made the right choice, and she turns her attention back to the job at hand, secure in the knowledge that once she's done here, she can head back and tell Grace _everything_.

*

When she returns, she’s bruised, filthy, re-aquainted with the extremely harsh realities of what they’re facing and filled with a million ideas on how to proceed, on how they can _win_ , but over-riding all of that is the desperate need, the absolute desire, to see Grace. To get everything out. 

She’s jumping out of the transport before it’s even ground to a halt in the hanger; she’s throwing a ‘dismissed’ over her shoulder as her feet hit the ground and heading for the exit at double-time. 

Grace isn’t in her barracks, and Dani feels a current of worry sweep through her, jellying her knees for just a second as she heads for her own apartments. Has something happened since she’s been away? No...Jake would have gotten word to her somehow, would have been waiting for her. So where is she? 

The relief she feels as she opens the door to her rooms and sees Grace sitting at her little reclaimed table, haloed in the weak sunlight coming through the window, is like nothing she’s ever felt before. It washes through her like a tide, carrying away her worry, until she realises that Grace isn’t looking up - isn’t acknowledging her, isn’t smiling. 

“Grace…” At that, Grace does look up, and the emotion Dani sees there is like a gut punch - so much confusion, so much sadness. 

In everything they’ve been through in the last few months and years, the separations, the injuries, the sheer damn danger they’re in...the only time that Dani has felt like she's really and truly in danger of losing Grace is when Grace looks up at her and says, “You’re turning us into machines?”, her voice cold and flat, her face quivering with repressed emotion. 

That’s when Dani sees it, under Grace's hand on the table: the file she recognises as the file recording the unsuccessful first tests of the augmentation programme.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Contains descriptions of graphic injury and character death.
> 
> I know this is still angsty and tough going - I hope you decide to stick with it :) 
> 
> And yes, I was going to cliffhanger this chapter after the line 'And then there's nothing'...but it felt way too mean.

For a woman who’s faced down Terminators, the end of the world, insurrection in her own ranks and an angry Sarah Connor, Dani’s never been as scared as she is now. Not even when this all started, when she was clueless and helpless, did she have the cold sense of dread that’s creeping through her, chilling her veins, leaving her slowed and unsure and _frightened_. She's frozen, her idea of how their reunion would go slipping through her fingers, leaving her exposed, and _shit_...she doesn't know what to do or say, at all. 

_it’snotwhatyouthinkIcanexplainyoudon’tunderstandit’snotwhatitlookslike._ Every cliched turn of phrase she can think of lines up with astonishing speed, but the look in Grace’s eyes keeps her silent, keeps her words shackled and useless on the tip of her tongue. Her desire to explain everything, the joy she felt at finally deciding to come clean...it withers and dies under Grace’s expression. 

“I don’t understand,” Grace taps the folder. Dani can see the bob of her throat as she swallows hard. “What is happening here? Is this real?” And she's giving Dani a look that breaks her heart: one that says, _please tell me this isn't true. Please give me_ something. 

Dani can't. She can do nothing but nod, and Grace looks momentarily aghast. Then her expression shutters and she bares her teeth. “You’ve cut into people,” the disgust, the sheer disgust in Grace’s tone, brings bile to the back of her throat. “You’ve cut into them, you’ve taken out humanity, and you’ve put in Machine.” 

Grace is coldly furious. Dani’s never seen her like this: not in the past, when she was full of adrenalin and fear and passion, and not here in the future, when she’s full of hope and light and fierce joy. This is something beyond all of that. Something deep and vehement and focused. 

_Wehadtoit’svitaltothewarefforteveryadvantagewehavebringsusonestepclosertosurvival._ The words, they’re too-quick and jumbled in her mind. Sentences she’s delivered smoothly and calmly to Officers and scientists...They all feel like excuses, even though she knows they’re not, knows that there's justification for what they're doing.

“Goddamn you, _say_ something!” Grace slams the folder down on the table. “Explain to me how putting a Machine in someone is _right_!” 

_Youdon’tknowhowcouldyoupleaseletmeexplainIcantellyoueverything_.There’s so much that she wants to say, she can't figure out where to start: she, who has controlled rooms and forums and meetings and assemblies...She just needs another second to get the words _right_ , and then she'll tell her everything. She desperately searches for the right opener, the thing that will set the truth free, feels the beginning of it slip into place on her tongue, _Grace, my love, listen, please_. 

As she's opening her mouth to speak, Dani’s silence seems to have driven Grace too far. “You’re making us like them,” It’s impassioned and firey and Dani feels it in the very centre of her belly. “And it’s _sickening_.” 

All the words she's lining up, everything she wants to say, it all dries up, soaks back into her, leaves her parched for communication. She's staring, she knows, staring at the rigid posture, the righteousness, the glare, and something inside her snaps. She's been trying her best for so long, worrying that she's never quite doing the right thing, and to hear judgement like that...Her desire to explain is washed away by her desire to defend her position, to show Grace how wrong she is, to get Grace to take those words _back_. She feels herself putting mental distance between them, and then she's gone, gone into the space she reserves for her very worst moments. She’s been at this a long time, and at the centre of her mind is a shelter; a place where nothing, no horror, no shame, no guilt can touch her. She stands there now, resolute, sure in her safety, looking out at Grace as though she’s a stranger. She is Commander Ramos; Grace is a soldier. That's all she can be, right now. She sees Grace recognise the change in her, sees her adjust her seat minutely, lose a little bit of her composure. 

“Corporal,” The use of her rank puts Grace on the back foot: she can see the sudden flare of uncertainty in her eyes. She makes certain to enunciate every word as she says, “Do you know everything about this war?” 

“It doesn’t matter! What you’re doing is wro-”

“Do you know _everything_ about this war?” Dani isn’t raising her voice. 

“No! No, okay! I don’t. But there’s surely _nothing_ that can justify this!” 

“So you agree,” Dani’s hands are behind her back, her gaze is lidded and her jaw is set. “There may be circumstances you know nothing about. Information you don’t have.” 

“I…” It looks like Grace’s anger is peaking in waves. She’s looking at Dani like she’s someone she doesn’t know at all. A cold, calculating stranger. There’s uncertainty edging into her gaze. From her shelter, Dani can feel part of her mind howling like an injured wolf. She ignores it. “Yes. Fucking yes, okay! There are so many things I don’t know, but you know something I do? This is _wrong_!”

“Aren’t you even going to ask me why?” She bites back, and it’s cold. 

Grace’s eyebrows raise; her expression cycles through fury, frustration, exasperation. She bares her teeth. “What _possible_ reason could you have to do _this_? I don’t _want_ to know, goddamn you! I don’t want to go out on a mission and not know if the guy next to me is _human_!” And Dani feels the wound of the words, even in the safety of her mental sanctum. The fact that Grace wouldn't consider an augment _inhuman_ , it...

“Enough!” Dani can’t have this Grace thinking that. “That’s enough!” 

"No!" Grace shakes the file violently. Papers and photos spill out across Dani's small, round table. "It is not enough! Why... _how_ could you even think to do this? It's sick!" 

"I did this because I _had_ too!" Dani's composure cracks, for an instant. Anger is seeping into her sanctum. "I did it because it...it's meant to happen!" The minute she spits those words, desperate to try and get Grace to understand, she regrets them. 

Grace's mouth is open, body is tensed like she had another salvo lined up, but as Dani's words sink in, she stops, confused. "Meant...? Like...like fate?" There's a blink as Grace re-aligns her next thought to the new direction of the conversation. "Fate?" To Dani, it looks like she almost _laughs_ in disbelief. "Are you fucking _kidding_ me?" 

Dani thinks about Grace, dead on the concrete; Grace, cutting them free in the helplessly dangling humvee and flying up, up, up toward a Terminator; Grace, strong and powerful and her hero. "No." And she's cold, removed, clear. "No. I am not kidding you. You have no fucking idea how much this is not a joke." 

When Grace speaks again, there's a fierce undercurrent of anger still lacing her words. "These people...you're asking them to put their lives on the line on the surgical table...To become _monsters_." 

"To become _weapons_. And when I stood in front of your intake and asked you to join this war, I asked _exactly_ the same thing of you! I have asked you to put you life on the front-line. I have asked others to put theirs on the line in vehicles, in planes, in factories, in fields, on roads, on rivers, in cities. Do you have any idea how many people I've asked to _die_?" She can't help the emotions that turn her even tone into a shaky vibrato. She swallows hard: she can't stop now. “Do you have any idea what it takes to win this war? Any idea, any at all, the choices it takes? Any idea how many times I’ve had to weigh the cost of one life against another?” She says it as calmly as she can, but the weight of the statement, the weight of her history presses down on her hard, making her feel breathless, shaken to the core. 

Grace is still staring, still looking like she’s never met this version of Dani before. There's a hint of pity in her eyes. Dani looks away. "I...I get that, I do, but, Dani..." She picks up a photo, tosses across the table. "This is...this is experimentation! It's monstrous!" 

“Get it? You don't _get it_. How could you? You know nothing,” Dani raises her chin. She can feel the walls of her shelter tremble. “You know absolutely _nothing_.” Her fists are balled so tightly they hurt, and she's so rigid her muscles are aching. Her jaw is painful with tension, and she hates that she can feel the suspicion of tears in the corner of her eyes, even from the safety of her shelter. Goddamnit how can this be happening? She doesn't know how she imagined this would go - the moment Grace came face to face with augmentation - but she didn't know it would be _this_ , and it's rocking her whole world. She picks a point on the wall and stares, flicking her eyes back to Grace every few seconds. Grace is staring, searching, and later Dani will wish she could have exited from her sanctum, could have somehow changed the course of the conversation, but she can't - this conversation has cut her too deeply, and in her wounded state, she's caught by the vines of pride, anger and fear that had grown from the soil of her self-loathing, tied up and trapped. 

What's worse is that there's one thought that keeps trying to occur to her, one thought that, no matter how she tries to hide from it, keeps forcing its way into the forefront of her mind, engendered by every trigger inside her that this conversation has pulled.

It's this: at her core, she's always worried that she's a monster, and now, before her very eyes, that monster is made flesh in every angry word, piteous glance, horrified exaltation from Grace. Every minute of this fight brings the monster further to life, a monster born from the following facts: She's a woman who's taken love from a woman she knows she's going to kill. She's a woman who's taken so much pleasure from a woman she knew she would ask for so much pain from later, pain she hasn't warned her about. She's a woman who, according to Grace, is making monsters, so what can that possibly make her when she asks Grace to become one? And the crux of all her worries: once Grace understands everything she's done, everything she _will_ do...well...how could someone love someone who makes choices like that? How can someone love someone who asks them to become inhuman? The question settles into her bones, leads her down a path she's always tried to avoid, but now seems inexorable - the path where Grace sees the monster she's always, deep down, been afraid that she is, and now she's worried that monster is threatening to inhabit her. 

Suddenly, horrifyingly, she understands a possible reason why Grace came back so ignorant of what had happened in the past; why, maybe, she might not have decided to tell her everything: because she didn't want the monster to take shape. That thought - the thought that she would keep Grace ignorant to save herself pain? - it's horrifying, makes her more a monster in her eyes, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. All of this, it leaks into her mental sanctum, stains it red, and she can't help but lash out.

"You know fucking nothing about what it takes to lead, Grace, so don't you dare tell me you 'get it'! Don't you fucking dare!" And she plants a fist through the crappy door of a kitchen cupboard, but doesn't feel the pain of it. "The augmentation programme will go ahead. Don't question me again!"

Where she expects a return salvo of Grace's anger, silence, heavy and sucking, pours into the vacuum her violence has created in the conversation. She takes a moment, has to, to get her breath, to close her eyes and calm down, and when she turns, Grace is sitting at the table, staring. Her anger has drained, leaving her face a mix akin to pity, confusion and - God, no, no - fear. “What…” There are the suspicion of tears pooling at the bottom lid of Grace’s eyes. “What has this war _done_ to you?” 

It’s both exactly the right question and exactly the wrong one. There, right there in Grace’s tone and eyes, her greatest fear becomes real; the monster takes full shape and she cannot bear it. Her shelter weakens and crumbles around her. She can do nothing but try and hold it around her, grabbing onto the walls with everything she has, trying to keep them upright through sheer force of will as her throat closes and her eyes start to burn and _fuck_ this is not how this was supposed to go. She stands a little straighter, tries to cloak herself in her rage a little tighter, but it’s gone, transmuting from protective anger to smothering grief so fast it’s leaving her breathless. 

“I’ve done what I had to do,” She closes her eyes for just a second, swallows hard, hates the rough edge that her voice has acquired, feels like she’s drowning. “Get out.” 

It takes Grace by surprise, and she hesitates, but Dani needs her out, now, before the walls collapse. The longer she looks at the woman she loves and sees fear and pity and _this_ , the more she feels like she can’t breathe. _“Out.”_

Her hands are balled into fists so tightly they’re quivering. She can’t look at Grace as she hears the other woman puts both hands on the table and push herself up in a way that seems slow and painful, and Dani can’t take much more of this. Her heart is pounding and her ears are ringing and she hates everything about the last ten minutes of her life. 

Slowly, so slowly, Grace moves, but instead of heading for the door, she heads toward Dani. Dani can’t look at her but she shakes her head even as Grace gets closer, as Grace raises her hands and takes hold of Dani’s upper arms, as Grace pulls her into an embrace that’s as awkward as Dani is rigid. 

“Grace,” She manages, but it’s weak and has nothing of the iron that sat in her bones just moments ago. Her hands ease enough for her to unfurl her fingers, to see the whiteness of the skin where she's clenched it so, and she braces them against Grace’s chest but cannot bring herself to push. The warmth of the other woman, her proximity, her smell...she wants to curl up against her and never move again, but she can't. “...Grace.”

Grace is trying to pull her closer and then she does fight, puts tension in her arms, resists the comfort because fuck she doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t want it, and it turns into a push-pull between them. Grace is talking, imploring Dani to look at her, but she _can’t_. 

She doesn’t ever want to see that monster reflected back at her again. The moment she always feared might come is here, and it rips the ground out from under her in a way she can’t process; Grace has seen the woman underneath: the one that’s known about her death, the one that’s managed to keep going, to paper over that fact, to take happiness from Grace anyway...and what kind of monster does that _make_ her? 

She doesn’t realise she’s crying, saying some of this out loud, until halting and hesitant Spanish filters through her mind. Grace is calling to her, trying to sooth her, telling her it will all be okay and variations on that theme, all not quite right, the language awkward. She’s never heard Grace speak Spanish before, didn't realise she was learning. At any other - literally any other - time she'd be touched, charmed, would feel loved, but now it's only enough to shock her back to reality. 

It’s then that she’s cognizant of her tears, her dry mouth, her aching head, the sick swirl of emotions in her stomach that haven’t subsided yet. She pushes away, quickly, before Grace can stop her, and turns her back, puts the back of her hand to her mouth and closes her eyes. She’s trying desperately to pack everything away back into its boxes, to compartmentalise, to get back to the equilibrium of just a moment before, but she _can’t_. Dani-the-monster is real, and she can’t unsee that. She knows, now, just exactly what Grace thinks of the whole thing. It makes the reality of what she decides to do in the FuturePast even more horrifying. 

“Grace,” Is all she can say, keeping her eyes closed against everything. Emotion beats at every inch of her, clogging her throat, hurting her eyes, making her thoughts feel both too fast and fractured, useless. All she can think about is white scars on pink skin, pain in blue eyes and blood on her own hands as they hold Grace’s mechanical battery. “Please. Just go.” 

Grace is standing but she isn’t moving, and Dani doesn’t know what she looks like from the outside but inside everything is crumbling. It’s all she can do to stand upright, stare at a point on the wall and grind out, “Out.” 

She thinks that Grace might argue, that she might fight back, but she moves slowly toward the door. She feels sick when Grace’s hand is on the doorknob; feels sicker still when she’s through and pulling the door closed slowly. 

She expects a remark, a final parting shot as the door closes - somehow, the silence punctuated by nothing but the click of the lock as the door fits back into its frame is worse. 

It’s all she can do to make it to the couch before the tears come again. 

*

She doesn't know how long she sits there, feeling as if the _her_ that's sitting there is somehow different, inescapably changed, from the _her_ of two hours ago, the one who was so sure that once Grace knew everything, they could move forward together. Another piece of her monster clicks into place; she's been so delusion to think Grace would ever _choose_ to become something so broken, even for her. How could she assume that? She can see her folly now in stark and painful terms, and it makes her tears flow even faster. 

It takes a while, but eventually, she reaches the peak of her grief and passes over it. She finds that once that happens, her strategic brain takes over; she finds herself in a place where she's trying to outthink this, examining it from every angle, trying her best to find a way to _fix_ it, but nothing immediately jumps out at her. She keeps trying to remind herself: She is Dani Ramos. She is a woman who’s co-ordinated the survival of the human race; who has engineered some of the most complicated military manoeuvres the world has ever seen and so engineering the possibility of a conversation with Grace shouldn't be beyond her. Whichever way she thinks about it, though, right now every avenue of conversational approach seems littered with too many obstacles for her to overcome, and she remains stuck, heartsick and frustrated and sore.

Eventually, she can’t bear to be alone with her own thoughts anymore, so she heads to her office, locks the door, and throws herself into work. 

* 

The days pass. After the second day ends with no word from Grace, she balls up every bit of courage she has and heads to Grace's barracks, knocks on the door of her room. There's no answer, and she tries again. When there's still no response from inside, she reaches out hesitantly, tries the handle, but the door's locked so she settles down to wait. Waiting for more than forty minutes eventually garners her strange looks from the soldiers passing by, until one brave soul stops to ask the Commander of Humanity whether she's alright. 

It's a tall, red-headed woman who looks vaguely familiar. She stops, radiating awkwardness at approaching the base Commander, but she salutes crisply and stutters through a question - is Dani okay? 

There are so many responses Dani could give to that question, she feels a small, ironic smile pull at the corners of her mouth. "I'm fine, Specialist...? Dixon, thank you. Would you know when Corporal Maxwell is coming back to barracks?" But Specialist Dixon seems to know about as much of Grace's whereabouts as Dani herself, and can only shake her head and reply in the negative. 

Dani nods, gives the solider a small smile, salutes and says, "When you see her, please ask her to report directly to me? Thank you," to which the solider salutes with a 'sir! yes sir!' and moves aside to let Dani pass back toward the exit. 

Another day passes, and then another, and Dani can't sleep, isn't eating well. She's left messages for Grace but heard nothing. Jake knows something is wrong, but she rebuffs his attempts to get her to talk, until he just says that he'll be there for her when she does want to. She goes through the motions - work, eat, sleep, repeat - but doesn't really feel anything except a growing headache and a sense of physical unease. 

At first she doesn’t realise what’s happening. She attributes the dizziness and the weakness she's suddenly feeling to the sleepless nights, and the dull, aching pain in her chest to what she imagines is a physical admonition from her body: she can believe that it's punishing her for being so fucking stupid, and that it will stop when she makes amends. Sometimes it all recedes, and she feels better, and some days it’s much, much worse, the dizziness making her vision swim and her balance falter, and the pain in her chest making her stop and hiss. 

After another day, she gives up and visits a base doctor, discreetly. On the surface, they can find nothing wrong, but she insists and they take a little blood, do a few x-rays. 

She’s watching herself in the window of the doctor’s office while she waits for results, drawn into her own clouded gaze, examining the palor of her skin, the redness encroaching into her eyes. She’s so lost, she doesn’t hear the doctor return; doesn’t hear him sit down, doesn’t register his presence until he clears his throat so loudly he accidentally sets himself coughing. 

Once he’s calmed himself with a sip of water, he starts talking. Dani doesn’t understand - they’ve found _nothing_ to explain her symptoms. She pinches the bridge of her nose, sighs. 

“You're certain?” He nods, and she stands. “Thank you for your time.” 

“Commander, wait,” He’s standing too, nervous at addressing her, but determined. “Could...could we perhaps look at other factors?” 

He’s politely asking her to discuss her mental state, and they both know it. She shakes her head, essays a polite but firm smile and does not remove her hand from the door knob. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll let you know if anything changes.” And she’s out the door before he can protest further. 

She feels fine today, anyway; maybe things are on the up and up. 

*

The next night, she still feels fine physically, and she thinks maybe she’s turned a corner. She feels positive. She's decided - she's still going to tell Grace everything, and she’s making a timeline of everything that happened, making notes, making sure that when she tells her everything she’ll leave no detail to the mercy of her memory in the moment. She knows, deep down - even if she can’t fix...all this, she has to _try_. It’s like someone’s taken a limb, an organ...she feels the absence of Grace in a physical way that she can’t quantify, in a way that doesn't seem possible. 

So she sits, and she thinks through everything that happened, like she’s done a million times before. She’s highlighting everything Grace will need to know - how to fly a helicopter, how to fly a cargo plane, that they’ll go _here_ , that He will appear _there_. It’s when she starts to think about the final fight at the dam that she starts to feel off again, and she thinks the dizziness is a consequence of her heightened emotional state, that the sickness is because of having to remember it. She takes deep breaths, decides to take a break and starts pacing her apartment. It’s when the second wave of nausea approaches and she sways, having to reach and grab the back of the couch to stay upright, that she knows something is really, really wrong. 

Her grip slips, and she lets out a gasp as she lurches forward. It’s all she can do to lunge in the direction of her bed, landing awkwardly, her feet on the floor, her torso landing heavily on the thin mattress. Her breath escapes harshly as she’s struggling to keep it in, as she feels like her lungs have stopped functioning fully, as she feels like she can't _breathe_. She tries to call out, tries to make a noise, her world narrowed to the pure panic of survival, but all she can do is writhe and twist, every inch of her a flailing, feeble mess. 

Her last thought, as everything starts to go dark, is of nothing but pain. 

*

When she wakes up, she’s managed to get herself fully on the bed - she doesn’t remember how. For a moment, everything is utterly peaceful. Every molecule of her is still and poised, for what she doesn’t know, until her mind catches up with the reality of her body, and every single muscle she has becomes taut with a kind of pain she’s never experienced before. 

It takes seconds for her to realise the cause. The pain is too big to be narrowed down to a single point at first, but eventually, she reaches up with a shakey hand and delicately touches the right hand side of her sternum. Her fingers come away red.

There’s a hole in her chest. The pain is indescribable. it’s radiating from the wound; a ripping-shredding-tearing that feels like her cells are being deconstructed one by one, like she’s being melted in place. It’s the worst burn, the worst stab, the worst gunshot, the worst sickness she’s ever experienced rolled into one horrific experience. She feels her chest constrict, feels her breath start to come in tiny, hissing contractions as her body tries to move the area as little as possible. The pain is...it removes her sense of self, and replaces it with nothing but itself, abiding and final.

She’s aware her eyes are open but can’t analyse their input; aware she’s receiving information from eyes and ears and skin, but all she can live, all she _is_ is the wet, wet hole in her chest, the broken pit of flesh and bone and muscle that her every sense, her every second of perception is focused on. _How_ and _Why_ are completely obsolete questions; all she can experience is the pain as it sits in her and radiates through her, pulsing in a sick, sick way, leaving her empty and helpless. Sweat is pushing out of every pore - her body is entirely out of her control as muscles spasm, as futile gasps fail to fill broken lungs, as blood trickles into her throat in a way that spikes adrenalin and leaves her choking. 

She knows, on a bone-deep level, that this is it. Her body is too broken. She can feel the blood seeping across her skin under her shirt, feel her heart struggling. It fills her head with a pulling _thump-thump-thump_ that gets louder and louder, a pulse that pushes at her ears and eyes as her back bows, her body fighting one last fight to get air, to _survive_. She’s nothing but a machine herself now, reduced to its primary functions as the machinery fails. 

She’s in too much pain to do anything to save herself, to do anything except simply exist with it. The ceiling above her is fading under her vision and all she can hear is the failing, erratic thud of her heart. She’s aware that her body has stopped spasming. There’s a terrible lassitude starting in each of her limbs; an almost welcome release from the pain, from the responsibility of each muscle and fibre and tendon that makes up _Dani_ and she can’t stop it. Her consciousness begins to slide out from her grasp. She has no energy left to hold on to it; no strength with which to keep being _her_ , and there’s a gathering of noise in her ears, a deep singing ring that blocks out noise from the world. 

She’s on the very edge, sliding away, her back heavy on the bed and the wool blanket rough under her fingers. Her very last thought, the very last effort she can make as _herself_ , is to think about Grace, to picture her face laughing under the moonlight in the ruins of a broken building. It's all she wants to focus on as the edges of her vision darken further, but as desperately as she wants to hold on to it, it's forced out of her mind by what happens next. 

The room around her wavers and suddenly, she can feel, under her fingers, not the rough wool of her blanket but a cold concrete floor. The walls of her apartment flicker; she's both there and somewhere she doesn't recognise, cold and utilitarian. With a great effort of will, she drops her head to the side; in her reality, her apartment is still exactly as she left it. In the reality that's imposing itself upon her, Sarah Connor is crawling desperately toward her, reaching out for her, screaming, bloodied and broken. 

She both is and isn't Dani-the-Commander - that life is both hers and lost to her, because she's both on her bed in the future, and on her back in 2020. Realities blend and blur; there, she's known to everyone; here, no-one will ever know her name as she dies in obscurity. As she is drawn further and further back into the past, shimmering into life above her is the Rev-9, its face a foul mimicry of humanity as its fist perfectly fits into the ragged, awful wound in her chest. Its cold, red eyes are the last thing she sees before she dies, blotting out Grace’s beautiful smile from her mind. 

And then there’s nothing. 

*

Coming back from death is the second most painful thing she’s ever experienced. 

She’s on the very edge, a millisecond from too-far-gone, the Rev-9’s implacable, leering metal face above her, when suddenly her chest expands, a great whooping breath pulling oxygen into her body. She snaps back into her own reality as the past is shut out, and her heart crashes back to life with a frenzied drum-beat as her body - newly and resoundingly and confusingly whole - works overtime. She feels like she’s falling-falling-falling away from the Rev, and landing back on her bed in the here-and-now. 

It's utterly disorientating. She’s gone from barely breathing at all to hyperventilating, and she can feel every bit of the oxygen she’s consuming moving through her body, filling her veins, waking her limbs. She jerks as the blood that had been filling her throat suddenly causes a survival reaction to dislodge it, and she spits it up awkwardly, coughing it out of herself. 

“Motherfuck _er_!” Is the first thing she can think to say. Every inch of her feels like it has the worst case of pins and needles in the whole world, and it’s fucking agony. She forces herself, though, to raise a hand and flop it down onto her chest. It comes away bloody and her mind trip-slips with adrenalin, but when she feels her chest again it’s whole and solid and warm. There’s no searing pain under her fingers - her body is in one piece. The panic, though...her mind doesn’t feel as whole as her body now appears to be. The sheer act of dying has fractured her, sent parts of her spinning in ways she’s never experienced before, and she doesn’t know how to stop them. 

She has to try and stop her mind from spinning, so she grounds herself by clutching the blanket underneath her and trying to remember where she got it; by remembering the last three orders she gave; by remembering _Grace_. That works. She thinks and thinks of every moment she can; in the past, in the future, desert kisses and awful dates and blonde hair and strong arms and scars and gunfire, and everything she thinks of quiets her mind just a little, allows her to come back to herself, until slowly, slowly, reality settles back over her like a shroud. She finds herself, eventually, able to take stock: Her chest aches like a bitch, as does her head. Sweat glues her clothes to clammy skin - she can feel the dampness of her braids through the chill of her head, the slickness of her skin through the dampness of her clothes. Her body is reporting in, and she does not like the sit-reps she’s receiving. It’s better, though, so much better, than what she sees when she closes her eyes - Sarah's shattered body next to her, and the fist of a Terminator inside her chest, viscera and blood and bone exposed, and pain, such pain that even the memory of it freezes her. 

Eventually, she feels that she can sit up - when she does, it’s with a groan. The change of position makes her head pound, and she has to sit on the edge of her bed, very, very still, for long moments. She needs to think about what's happened, but the memory of the pain is too fresh and her survival instincts are too sharp; no rational thought occurs directly after she comes back to herself. Her first reaction, her innate human inertia before she has time to process, says to get up, to get up and _run_ to Grace, to explain _everything_ immediately and pray that it’s enough to stop her having to experience that again: she must avoid this, she must. 

So, before she can think about it, she's getting off the bed, staggering to her feet, blundering toward the door. Every part of her aches; she may not have the injury now, but her body has the memory of the trauma and God, it hurts, slows her progress as she fights her away across the room.

It’s when she reaches the table and sees her notes that she pauses. Grabs the back of a chair to steady herself. Sits in it with a thump. She looks down at herself, understands then that she's not thinking clearly, that she's in shock: her clothing is whole but completely soaked, tacky with the blood of her past self. Her hands, her chin, her body...they're all coated in blood, and if she cross the base like this, she'd have a hell of a lot of questions to answer. 

She sits there for a long time. She's not sure how long. She's shivering, nauseas, pale and weak and disoriented. Shaking hands sift through her notes, leaving bloody finger-prints, but she's not taking anything in, lost to herself. It takes time to calm down, time for her body to reach some sort of equilibrium, self-preservation instincts warring with conscious thought. 

She looks down at the blood covering herself again, swallows nausea. She finds that she can feel her brain re-initialising like a computer, bits of it coming back online, thought becoming easier as the panic of the situation recedes. Eventually, in her blood-soaked clothes and her sweat-slick skin, she's ready to ask _why it happened_ , and it's an answer she finds she already knows. It’s knowledge that came to her in those last few seconds, as the other reality solidified around her, and she comprehends the situation intimately and immediately.

The reality she saw, with a beaten Sarah Connor, and a Terminator fulfilling its mission...that was the timeline that happens...happened? if Grace doesn’t go back and save her. That is where she would have _ended_ if Grace hadn't of been there. And this? Her being dragged to the moment of a possible death? Her experiencing her end? This is happening because, here and now, Grace is choosing whether on not to forgive her, whether or not she'll hate the augmentation programme, whether there's a chance she'd decide to ever, ever have anything to do with it, and she's just experienced what happens - happened - when Grace, just for a moment, decides she will not. If Grace decides to be against it; if she never gets augmented, never goes back...Dani's just experienced the outcome. 

To think that Grace is so unsure of her, that she hasn't even come to talk...It breaks her damn heart. Sets the ache of the hole there to throbbing in a way that has nothing to do with memory of the injury and everything to do with how she feels, and how she’s fucking failed. 

Standing, she takes a deep breath. A lot - almost all - of her still screams to find the other woman, to try and head off the chance of the pain ever returning. Instead, she slowly peels off her ruined clothing, all of it, piece by piece, and then goes and stands in front of the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. 

Her face is covered in blood. Her body too. It’s everywhere. She doesn’t understand how it didn’t disappear when the wound did, but then, she doesn’t pretend to understand time travel and it’s associated affects. Tears she didn’t realise she was crying are cutting tracks through the drying blood on her face, leaving streaks behind, dripping off her chin and leaving a bloodied puddle on the floor. Her eyes are wide, shadows under them so deep it’s like bruising, and she stares at herself until her face doesn’t really make sense anymore, like a word you say over and over until you don’t recognise it. But she stares, and she stares, and she thinks, and she thinks. 

She could tell Grace what ramifications her decision apparently has in the here-and-now. That if she rejects the programme, never enrols, Dani will die. She could force Grace's hand, because she knows: if she tells Grace what's happened, Grace will agree to anything to stop it happening again, no matter if they're fighting or not. She believes that, because she _knows_ Grace, knows she wouldn't want to see anyone in pain, no matter their relationship. The image of her monstrous self appears before her: If she thought she was a monster before, guilting Grace into doing something as big as the augmentation programme to save her own life...it would make her one, without a doubt. 

She stares, and she stares, and she knows it's time to decide: is she Monster, or woman? 

*

She decides: She is Dani Ramos. She is a woman. And she will do her best. 

She'll do the only thing she can: She'll try to save Grace's life. She's explain why the augmentation programme came about. She'll explain everything. She doesn’t trust herself to do it dispassionately in person, to not add some sort of bias, so she’ll add to her notes, make them coherent, make them a complete account of the timeline of events, presented as a mission report. The past. The present. She'll do her best to give every single memory to Grace, and hope that it's enough. She won’t interfere with Grace’s decision, won't tell her what's happening to her as she's deciding here and now, even if it costs her her life, because the whole damn point, everything she’s fought for, is so that any human being can decide what happens to them freely. If she fucks this up, then she’s missed the whole damn point. 

Once she's decided, she feels...better. She places a hand against her chest, presses hard against the spot she felt the Rev-9’s fist, feels nothing but the uncomfortable pressure of her own hand. She closes her eyes and a sob escapes her, half joy at being alive, half something else. Maybe deep down she's not a monster; maybe she's just a woman, doing the best she can.

She doesn’t look in the mirror again; she’s seen what she needed to see. She turns away, starts the shower, turns it up as hot as she can stomach and stays under it for as long as she can. It’s long enough for her to be able to put the decision she’s made in a mental framework she understands - it’s no longer a decision she simply _feels_ , but one that she’s cognised into a plan of action, one with a very simply mission statement. 

She’ll let Grace decide her own fate.


	11. Chapter 11

Once she’s made the decision, she feels better. It feels like a step in the right direction, and if she's not going to try and influence Grace, merely give her the facts, still, she’s not totally passive - yes, she wants Grace to decide her own fate, but there’s no way in hell she’s not going to do all she can in the meantime to try and secure Grace’s life in the past, should she choose to go back. 

So, she lets Jake know she’s taking a few personal days - he sounds both relieved and worried, and immediately offers himself and his wife as dinner dates, which she reluctantly turns down - and, after she’s bagged the ruined clothing on the floor, put the bedsheets in the wash and cleaned the remaining blood from floor and furniture, she sits down and begins to write. 

She writes her - their - story, not just in note form, but as fully and completely as she can remember it, leaving out no detail, in the theory that anything - when to duck, what direction the Rev-9 comes from, that they should move the Goddamn EMPs - could make a difference. She doesn’t know why she hasn’t done this before; she feels like, until now, she’s been a passive participant, almost. A traveller adrift on the seas of time, who had no idea she could steer, who felt that the wind and waves around her was too much for her to change. But now, she realises, she doesn’t _have_ to change it: she just has to raise a sail. 

She feels...productive, writing, writing, writing as she is, and when she needs a break, she goes out and liasies with R&D on the augmentation programme. She makes sure to impress on them something she’s mentioned since the start; the augments must have a chance of survival without their cores. A chance. She also does her best to remember the drugs that Grace was having to take; gives a list to the augment crew, doesn’t explain how she knows that the augments may have weaknesses best combated by this cocktail, and politely points out that they should watch out for issues that may require those kinds of things to fix, to try and fix them now, if they can, so that the augments aren't so dependant on all the drugs.

When she gets back to her rooms, she hopes - desperately, completely - that when she opens the door, she’ll find Grace there, standing over her little round table with handfuls of her hand-written notes, asking, ‘What is all this?’, confused and angry but _there_ , but the room is empty, her papers are where she left them, and all she can do is sit down and write, and write, and write. She tries to ignore that she’s feeling a little sick again; that dizziness is nipping at her heels. 

She stays up as late as she can, but the day's events have taken a toll, and as much as she wants to stay awake, stay alert, stay present in case Grace finally comes back, she finds herself approaching the bed. She stands over it for a long time. She’s changed the sheets, but she can’t stop imagining what she must have looked like, sprawled and gasping with a hole in her chest, splayed and helpless. 

In the end, she gets her spare sleeping bag, and stretches out on the couch. 

*

Sleep is slow to come, and when it does, she's not surprised that she dreams about Grace, fighting to save her from the Rev-9. She hasn’t dreamt of this moment in so long, and she doesn’t want to now, but has no choice as her mind pulls her back down into the memory of their final fight. It’s re-enacted in dream-time, flitting from punch to explosion to scream in a way that’s disorientating and sickening, and Dani is screaming at herself to wake-up-wake-up-wake-up, but nothing happens, and with inexorable inertia the dream picks up speed. 

They'd been in the cockpit, and Dani can remember the way that Grace had looked at her - earnestly, hopefully, _reverently_ \- when the Rev-9 reappeared, a blip on the radar highlighting his unrelenting chase as he flies toward them in a plane of his own. Grace orders Sarah and her out of the cockpit and into the humvee, to get ready for evac: They'd managed to traverse most of the plane as they're tossed around by turbulence, she and Sarah, when their world had exploded, a hideous hole appearing in the side of their plane, a suction that Dani can't believe pulling at her arms and legs. Their plane is falling, falling, and she’s clinging to the inside with all her strength, calling for Grace. There's cold, cold metal under her fingertips and cold, cold air in her lungs, and she's clinging to the plane with all her might, until - there! - Grace appears from the cockpit, and like a missile points herself at a point near Dani and _drops_ through the plane. 

The next thng she knows, she’s suddenly, frighteningly weightless and then Grace is there, catching her, pulling her against her with strong arms and they're clinging together, spinning in the seconds of faux-weightlessness their terrifying tumble through the sky creates. Dani can’t tell which way is up, can’t tell where anything is except Grace, solid and strong and keeping her arms around her. 

Then, Carl hits them with a thump, dragging them back to the side of the plane, and goddamn he weighs a _tonne_ , but they're safe from suction and turbulence while he's holding them safe against the side of the plane. Dani has time for a panicked _where is Sarah_ to cross her mind, before the Rev-9 appears at the edge of the wound in their plane, pulling itself inside with the cold focus of a predatory insect. Grace sees him too: despite Carl's weight, it still seems like child's play for Grace to push Dani and Carl aside with a snarl as the Rev comes through the hole and leaps, reaching out for them, for _her_. He's deadly and expressionless and _always_ coming, coming, coming, and Dani watches as once again her human protector fearlessly lashes out at their Machine foe. 

Free of the weight of Dani and Carl, Grace kicks out at him as he launches himself at them, kicking with such force she knocks a crater in his liquid metal face, exposing the dark, dark metal underneath. She readies for another strike, but then Carl's arms are releasing Dani, and Carl is on him, gathering him up, dropping to the end of the plane, getting him away from Dani. Dani loses sight of them as Grace guides her through the chaos and into the humvee. 

“I’ll get Sarah!” Grace calls to her, and in that moment, in the midst of fire and fury and almost certain death, Dani knows that she loves Grace, loves her deeply. She’s risking herself for Sarah, without Dani asking, without her making a point of it, and she loves her, this augmented human from the future who wants to save all of their little group, who will put herself at risk for Sarah now too. 

She can’t see what happens next, but suddenly Sarah’s being bundled into the humvee, and there’s an explosion behind them as the cargo doors blow open. Carl’s still fighting the Rev-9, and Dani hopes they're safe, that they're going to make it, but then her heart drops: the Rev’s liquid-metal form detaches from its exoskeleton - from its’ fight with Carl - and sprints toward the vehicle, free of resistance and ready to kill. Dani didn’t think she had any adrenalin left at this point, but it spikes through her sharply, leaving her sick and dizzy as her vision narrows until all she can see is the Machine. Suddenly, he stumbles; his back arches, his mouth opens in the parody of a scream and he explodes in a sheet of flame as a grenade blows him to pieces from the inside out. She has a second, a single second to breath before the humvee starts rolling backward. She has the horrifying realisation - Grace doesn't have time to get inside! - and then they're falling, falling out of the back of the plane, and she and Sarah are screaming and swearing as they plummet toward the earth. 

She has no frame of reference for the size of her fear as they hurtle toward the ground; no framework in which to define her terror as Grace struggles to hold on as the world spins past the windows, details blurred against a night-dark sky. She can’t tell how far away they are from hitting, doesn’t know how long they have left, but all her thoughts are focused on the woman clinging to the hood like a desperate, heroic limpet. 

It’s Grace - of course, always - that saves them, using her augmented strength to open the first parachute, fumbling as they fall, trying to save them from a gruesome end. She slows their fall to something merely very, very scary as opposed to mind-blankingly, horrifyingly terrifying with the first parachute, but Dani hears her shout something - the second one isn't opening properly, they're not out of the woods yet. Dani’s never seen a human being go as far as Grace is willing to go. It’s humbling and all encompassing, and she loves her: or, at least, she will, when she’s not heading toward the earth at speeds that preclude cognisant thought. 

The moment Grace manages to open the second parachute properly, the jerk as the humvee finally starts to slow accidentally flips her off and out of sight. Dani feels like she’s been gutpunched - it’s such a strong attack of emotion that she feels like she can’t breath. It’s not until Grace climbs back on to the hood and yells that they’re dropping too fast that Dani feels like she has breath left for screaming again. 

Grace is counting down, and with every number called the muscles in Dani’s body wind tighter and tighter, every inch of her expecting a crash at any second, but they keep falling, and Grace keeps counting. She’s so wound up that when they do land, it’s not actually as bad as she thinks it will be, until Sarah starts screaming in the seat next to her, her shoulder dislocated by the impact, and she realises they've landed on the edge of a dam, balancing precariously above tonnes of heaving water. 

What happens next happens in a dream-state blur, a fractured picture-reel of noise and water and adrenalin that has her mentally screaming. She relives the moment their humvee slips over the edge of the dam. She relives the hopelessness of hanging partway down the dam wall, dangling fearfully from the tangled remains of their parachute. She relives the stark terror she felt watching Grace climb out onto the hood and hold a knife over the only thing keeping them from crashing down into the churning water, and the horror of comprehending what Grace planned next. There are only so many times you can trigger your fight-or-flight instinct without burning it out, and Dream-Dani feels like she’s damn close to adrenalin overload. 

She's watching, in slow motion, as Grace stands, knife pressed against the rope, and she looks back toward Dani. There's so much in that gaze; love, apology, fear, fight, and Dani can't look away, not even as Grace cuts the parachute line and they fall, fall, fall. Her stomach lifts within her and the last thing she sees when she hits the water is Grace locked in combat with the Rev-9, tumbling through space. It’s enough to short her mind, to push her further into shock, even as they sink beneath the churned surface of the dam basin. 

Then her reality is her and Sarah, trapped underwater in a vehicle, tumbling through the current in a way that later will make her think of a washing machine but at the time is genuinely the worst part of the experience yet, the weight of water pressing down on them scary in a way a gun or a knife can't be; it's an unsurvivable wasteland, triggering a different flavour of panic than the Rev. When they finally come to a stop with a bump, the water night-dark and thrashing past the windows, she has no time at all to get her bearings before Sarah is thrusting a parachute at her, telling her to open it if the Rev-9 comes, holding her in a way that makes her feel almost as protected as Grace does. 

The Rev-9 does come, of course, and suddenly the window of their humvee is shattered, the illusion of their tiny piece of safety ripped away. Just when she thinks she can’t get more scared, can’t feel more like she’s about to _die_ , she’s wrong. Her body is seconds away from full, mindless panic, urging her to thrash and fight and swim away, and it’s only Sarah’s strong arms around her that keep her grounded in the moment, until she can open the parachute at the Terminator and watch him get pulled away by the current. 

Then they’re up, they’re out, they’re swimming as hard as they can for the surface, a surface that seems like an impossible distance away as they battle the current. She feels like she’s making more headway horizontally, begins to panic that she’ll never make it, that Sarah won’t make it, when suddenly the surface is there, and she’s never noticed how sweet air tastes until the moment when she bursts through, sucking in a deep lungful. 

They make it to the edge, and then - there! Grace is coming, struggling toward them, struggling to keep the extra weight of her frame afloat in the rapidly swirling water. Dani can’t help herself: as soon as Grace is close enough, she launches forward, wrapping her arms around Grace’s neck and squeezing. The answering embrace is tight; Grace is mumbling something, exhausted, into her neck; before Dani can ask her to repeat it, though, they’re moving up the hill toward the dam. 

*

Her dream stutters and jumps, because a part of her is fighting it: She doesn’t want to watch this part again, _never wants to_ , but her mind is relentless, marching her through memory without remorse or hesitation. 

Here: Carl returns, bringing Grace’s medicine in the nick of time, opening the door to the dark innards of the dam. 

Here: They are scoping out the turbine room, and Dani determines that this is their kill box, this is where they will make their stand, amid giant turbines whirring with furious force. 

Here: Is the Rev-9, appearing atop a turbine, unmarked and fresh with no signs of battle on his polymemetic skin, as their party - wearied and injured - aligns against him. 

Here: Is the Rev-9, asking Carl to join with him, offering words instead of violence until Sarah spits invective at him, and the fight is on. 

Here: Are Grace and Carl and Sarah, fighting for their lives, for her life, for future lives, fighting against a machine that they just can’t stop. The room is a whirl of devestation as the humans fight and fight, aided by a machine against a machine, and Dani can’t take her eyes off Grace as she whirls and spins with deadly precision. 

Here: The Terminator splits. The exoskeleton engages Carl, while Grace tries to stop the liquid metal half. The sounds of battle reverberate throughout the giant structure, echoing off concrete and metal as a the battle rages within the dam. 

Her dream zeros in in punishing detail; she watches, mouth agape, as the blade of the Rev-9 cuts through Grace, slicing through her so damn _easily_ , the beginning of the end for her beautiful, brave protector. For years after this moment, she will have nightmares - black liquid oozing under doors and through window frames, coalescing into a messenger of death in her home that she’s powerless to stop, slicing through her midriff just like he does to Grace here and now in her nightmare memory. 

Her dream flickers, shifts. 

Here: She’s watching Grace and Carl drag him - unified, his two pieces together as one - toward the turbine. 

Here: She’s watching as Grace puts everything she has left into throwing him into the frighteningly fast turbine, hears the animal scream as Grace heaves, snapping his jaw, dragging his metal body into the machinery. 

Here: She feels the heat, the concussive force, as the turbine explodes, scattering their group across the floor, dropping debris and fire around them. 

Here: She wakes up, blurry and aching. She looks for Grace - she sees Sarah, hears her warn that Rev is still coming. 

Here: She hears the Machine emerge from the wreckage, hears Sarah confront it, sees Sarah land, slumped and unconscious near them, trying to protect her to the last. 

Here: Grace. Always Grace. She remembers laying trembling hands on hot cheeks, looking down at someone she barely knows but can’t imagine living without. Grace, picking up the shard of metal from the turbine, handing Dani the instrument of her own demise, pressing the tip of the jagged metal to her own stomach and wrapping Dani’s hands around it. Dani can’t, she _won’t_ , not again, and she fights with everything she has not to lean into the metal, but Dream-Dani doesn’t stop, doesn’t try to, just leans on the metal with a half-sob. 

Of all the things she desperately tries not to revist, ever, the feeling of her hand inside Grace, and the noises Grace makes as she fumbles within her, have always, always been top of the list. She relives it now, all dream-vagueness gone, seeing it in the clearest high definition possible. 

Somehow, God, somehow, Grace is _guiding_ her as she pushes her hand through her skin, into warm wetness, and sends her fingers seeking. It's disgusting, pushing through the warn innards of a woman, and it's all she can do to keep going, to quest and touch and wrap her hand around what can only be the power-source within Grace’s abdomen, and Grace is talking her though it, supporting her to the last. Dani obeys Grace's directions, bites her lip so hard it hurts as she tries to ignore anything soft her hand touches. The worst feeling is the liquid seeping between her fingers as she fumbles to disconnect whatever the hell this is. She sobs, once, as Grace cries out in pain, as the cry devolves into a distressed moan, as Dani tries to pull out Grace’s mechanical heart. It’s stuck, and Dani’s gorge rises as she tugs, tugs, until with a wet separation she yanks it out of Grace. She tries so hard not to look at the hole she’s made in the woman she loves, tries not to look at the blood and fluid on her hands, at the pallour of Grace's skin. There’s a moment, one last one, where they lock eyes, and Grace nods. 

Dani feels nausea turn to anger, horror to rage, as she shoves the mini-reactor into her back pocket and steps out to face the Goddamn machine who’s taken everything, everything from her. 

She doesn’t know what she shouts, but as she picks up a shotgun with blood-slicked hands, she knows he’s going to die. Her memories flicker like a film on a broken projector as the dream jaggedly skips across her minds eye. 

Here: She advances, shotgun in hand, firing and firing at the molten ruin of the Rev-9, yelling, exhorting herself to higher and higher points of anger. 

Here: the Machine is off balance, and she leaps, Grace’s heart in hand, ready to _end_ this. 

Here: The Machine fights back, overwhelms her. 

Here: The Machine getting the upper hand as they fight, her dropping the reactor, the machine dragging her across the floor, the reactor just out of reach, her desperate thought that it can't end like this, it _can't_. 

Here: An unintelligible shout from Sarah, and then there's Carl, waking up, fighting back, fighting back with every part of the ruin that is his body, getting her the reactor. 

Finally: The moment of triumph she feels, animalistic and heady, as she thrusts the reactor into his eye-socket, as his skull erupts in coiling arcs of electricity, as his metal body spasms and his vocal chords screech and Carl pulls him down, down, down to his end in the bowels of the dam. 

She wants the dream to end there, on this moment of triumph. She doesn’t want to turn around, doesn’t want to see Grace’s eyes, empty, staring at the ceiling, but she can’t control her memory, can only cower at the back of her mind while her younger self sprints back to Grace’s body, experiencing the towering grief that she’s really gone for the first time all over again, the tsunami of realisation that crashes over her when she realises she's dead. 

Staring down at Grace's body, Dani feels like she’s lost the world before she even saves it. Like there isn’t a world left to save. 

Sarah Connor holds her, after she’s killed the terminator with Grace’s reactor. She holds her as they kneel above Grace’s body, gives her comfort awkwardly, the best she can. Dani will appreciate it later, the strength she can feel Sarah putting into the embrace - in the tension in Sarah’s arms, her back, despite her injured shoulder - even if she can’t find the words to help Dani. As she holds her tightly, she tries to turn Dani’s head away from blonde hair streaked with blood, but Dani can’t _not_ look. She has to memorise Grace’s face, press it into her heart as hard as she can - she doesn’t know if - _when_ , she has to believe it’s _when_ \- she’ll see it again. 

She flat out refuses to leave the body, at first; refuses to leave the other woman broken and alone on cold concrete, surrounded by destruction and fire. Dani, Dani wants to bury Grace, give her the goodbye she couldn’t give her father and brother, but Sarah, though...Sarah understands that after the fight comes the aftermath and she tries to explain this to Dani, in halting and angry language that vibrates with past experience. That people will come; authorities with zero flexibility in their thinking who _hear_ ‘killer robots from the future’ and _understand_ precisely none of it, who will rephrase the situation in mental structure they can file away without question. That she and Dani will be re-cast from hero to villain, thought of as deluded criminals at best and seriously mentally ill at worst, and the death and destruction that’s followed them will be _their fault_. Dani gets gist, she does, but...how can she leave her like this? 

She stares and she stares, and beside her Sarah becomes increasingly frantic, until finally she grabs Dani’s face and forces eye contact.

“If you’re caught, you won’t be around to find her in the future!” She’s shouting, and Dani can here the vibration of fear under her anger, knows that Sarah is right. But one thing sticks in her mind, and she can’t let it go, put there as it was by Sarah herself. 

“Sarah...we can’t, we can’t leave her here. They’ll find the body. They’ll…” she swallows hard. “They’ll have a picture. They’ll know her face. And it’ll be on file, all the, the machinery inside her....” 

Sarah blanches just slightly; Dani sees understanding underneath the fear. If there’s evidence here...it'll be a file that Legion would be interested in, and there won’t be a file on earth that will be safe from Legion, once it’s up and running. Legion will know what Grace looks like, will know exactly who comes back, and what her strengths and weaknesses are. Also: If Now-Grace’s data is on file, if they check dental records, if it’s smart enough to figure out who she is _now_...how can they keep young Grace safe if there’s a connection? 

Dani sees all of that pass through Sarah’s mind, hears her mutter something about Carl as well, and she doesn’t like the look that comes over Sarah’s face as the other woman finally lets her go and stands. 

“Dani,” Her voice is low and tight, “Go find us a way out of here.” 

“What...What are you going to do…?” 

“Something you’re not going to like.” Later she will understand that the roughness with which Sarah picks her up and pushes her toward the exit, it’s a _kindness_. Then, it feels abrasive, disorientating, feels like salt on wounds. “Just _go_!”

As she heads for the exit, she glances back. It takes a minute, but though the fire and devastation, she thinks she can see Sarah dragging Grace toward one of the still active turbines. She blinks, and the image is gone, and for her own sanity in that moment...she has to pretend she didn't see it at all. 

*


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains Sarah/Dani. If that's not your bag, please skip this chapter.
> 
> CAUTION: Contains suicide references. Please do not read if that is a trigger for you.

Normally, she wakes up in a cold sweat after the death of the Rev, but in this case, her exhausted body stays quiet, and the dream moves on, into the space beyond the fear and horror of the dam fight, and into the reality of the next few months. It skips like a stone thrown over the lake of her memories, touching certain points, marking the ripples, before jumping ahead to the next point. 

Sarah Connor is invaluable. She keeps Dani safe in the immediate aftermath, keeps her warm and fed when grief keeps Dani from being able to do those things for herself, when the shock of everything that’s happened is too much. She keeps stoic and - relatively, for Sarah - calm when Dani’s grief causes her to lash out, to attack, to use anger as a salve for her despair while her mind tries to process everything that's happened to them. 

After the dam, they run. They're both injured, in shock, reeling from everything that's happened, and it's sheer luck that they're not caught in those first 48 hours. After that, Sarah takes charge, and it’s surprisingly easy for an undocumented woman and one of America’s Most Wanted to get by: Sarah’s been doing this for a long time, and Dani’s a fast learner. They run, they find food, they find shelter, and they keep going, travelling across America because there's something Dani has to do before they can knuckle down and prepare for what's coming. 

They arrive outside Grace's home on a warm spring day, and follow the family discreetly to a park, watching them interact, watching a young Grace play, carefree and happy. Dani remembers turning to Sarah, and making a promise: she won't let her die for them again. 

Their first major point of contention is after that when, having proven that for now Grace is whole and hale and safe, Dani pushes for them to go to Carl house. It makes sense - it’s off the grid, it has food and electricity and water, and they know the code for the weapons bunker. To say Sarah reacts badly is an understatement. As much as she’s managed to remould her idea of Carl from ‘Robot who killed her son’ into ‘Robot who killed her son and helped them save Dani’, it’s still not mental territory she’s desperate to retravel, and, well, initially, Sarah is very much against any reminder of Carl. 

It takes weeks, and a very close call at a crummy motel, before Sarah agrees that a good base of operations might be worth it. 

So, they spend time at Carl’s house, off the grid, sorting through his weaponry and preparing themselves for what’s to come. Dani keeps tabs on Grace, as best she can from a distance, and they begin to train. Sarah is a hard taskmistress, but Dani’s grateful for every second: at first because it keeps her mind off Grace; later because it helps her feel like she might just survive what’s coming. They work on small and large arms fire, hand-to-hand combat, Machine warfare tactics, and Terminator weak spots, and it gives Dani a sense of power, a sense of strength, changes the very idea of herself into someone she can possibly, maybe, possibly see fighting back. She finds she loves the feeling of being _strong_. 

They also talk strategy: Sarah has clearly been thinking about Terminators for a very, very long time, and has so many thoughts and concepts about how to stop them that it’s hard for Dani to absorb it all. She can feel a hardness, toughness solidifying in her that she never would have expected, but does it feel like enough to save humanity? As the weeks pass, she has her moments of doubt. Sarah always catches her when she starts to slip: she tells her that she _can_ become the leader, the saviour, and even if Dani doesn’t believe her at first, it’s bolstering in a way that Dani didn’t know she needed. 

Their main discussion, for the first month, is whether it’s viable to try and track down Legion before it becomes Legion, and they try and fashion a hundred plans before they spend a week bitter and heartbroken together when they realise that they have neither the influence nor the resources to stop this before it manifests. Whoever is building Legion is being very careful at the amount of information out there, and Dani and Sarah - as good as they’re becoming together at finding information, and moving untracked - cannot stop what’s coming. 

*

They fall into patterns, living together in Carl's old home. She re-experiences the grief that finds her at odd moments, making her breathless and bringing tears to her eyes, and she relives Sarah's awkward attempts to console her. She re-lives their fear, always undercutting their lives, that someone will appear - the authorities, a Terminator - and their freedom will end, the future will be lost. She re-lives the sadness Sarah tries to hide. It comes out when she drinks too much (which is often), and they sometimes attempt to talk about it (but not enough). 

With Sarah, there's one day in particular that sticks out vividly in her mind. It's some day in July - she's not sure which - and the house feels empty when she awakes. She's knows without having to go and check that Sarah isn't in her room, isn't downstairs, and she dresses quickly, fumbling on her shoes as she leaves her bedroom, rushing to find the other woman because there's a swirling, sickly feeling in her gut that something isn't _right_. 

Sarah's out by the gun-range, and something about her makes Dani slow down, makes her approach slowly and carefully, as she would a wild animal. She's swigging from a bottle, though the time of day hasn't hit double-digits, and in her other hand, her old shotgun is tap-tap-tapping against her thigh. 

"Sarah?" She calls, and sees a tremble of surprise run through Sarah's shoulders, before she puts the bottle down, and fires so suddenly at a target it makes Dani jump. 

"Fuck you!" She calls out, and Dani doesn't know whether she's talking to the target, to Dani, or to the world at large. She takes another step forward, slow and careful, and then another, and it's then Sarah picks up her bottle and whirls to face her. 

Red-rimmed eyes hold a depth of grief Dani doesn't understand, until suddenly she does - there's only one thing that could cause grief this deep. "Today? Today was the day...?" She manages, before Sarah swigs, turns back, shoots again with furious purpose, and Dani regrets voicing her thought. 

She waits, poised to leap into action should she need to intervene, but Sarah's shoulders sag, the shotgun is hanging from her hand, and the bottle is once again at her lips. "You don't need me anymore." She says, and it's gravelly and wounded and low. 

Dani feels an adrenalin shot of fear at what Sarah's implying, wonders if she can get the gun from Sarah before she does anything stupid. "What do you mean?"

Sarah laughs, but it's rough and broken. "I'm an old woman who's served her purpose. I got nothing left. They've taken _everything_ from me. You don't need me tagging along until I'm old and useless. And I got nothing left to teach you." She drinks, raises her gun in a way that makes Dani's heart trip with fear before she lowers it again. There's something accusatory in her tone when she says. "A good commander would know when to get rid of dead weight." 

Dani feels that _something_ she's felt before rise within her, that something that has her stepping forward, in front of Sarah, into her eyeline, into the path of her shots. "A good commander would know not to waste an important resource!" She says, feeling the heat of indignant anger that is her only way of tempering her fear for Sarah now. 

Sarah's eyes snap to hers; a sneer raises her lip. "So that's all I am to you, _Saviour_?" She spits, anger pouring off her like the alcohol fumes Dani can smell. "A resource?!"

"No," Dani's voice is as strong as she can make it in the face of a wounded, savage Sarah, and she wills her gaze to transmit everything she's feeling, prays that it can. "You're my friend. My...my family. And we will save the future together." 

Sarah opens her mouth to retort, closes it, opens it again. Dani remains as still as she can, as calm as she can, until she feels safe to take a step forward, putting warmth into her tone, now putting her fear on display. "Sarah..." She's a step closer, and another. "I can't lose you. You're my friend. We've been through so much. Let me help you get through this." And she's raising her arm, reaching out an open hand, waiting, waiting. 

Sarah growls, shakes her head, but eventually her anger runs dry. When she throws the shotgun at Dani, she does so with tears in her eyes, slumping into herself. Dani catches it awkwardly, breaths a sigh of relief, holds a hand to her racing heart for a moment, before she eyes Sarah. She's starting to get to know her, her body language, her way of being, and she's thinks: Sarah doesn't want her to hold her; doesn't want her to tell her she's very sorry for her loss, or that everything's going to be okay. Nothing's going to make this day okay, but maybe...there's something that might help them get through it.

She makes up her mind, and says, "Wait here." 

It takes her ten minutes to find everything she needs, and she's scared Sarah will have found another weapon in the weapon bunker in the meantime, but she's where she left her, drinking and crying, and Dani's heart breaks. 

"Here," She says as she hands Sarah a baseball bat. She's bought two more bottles, too, and she cracks one herself, the alcohol sitting strangely in her empty stomach. 

Sarah's looking at her like she's never met her before, like she was expecting therapy and tears, not violence and booze, when Dani approaches the first gun range target. She takes another swig, and another, and another, lets the alcohol travel through her, open her up to her rage, her grief, and swings at the target as hard as she can, yelling, "That's for Grace, you metal motherfucker!". 

The bat hits the target with a clang that makes birds rise from far-away trees, squawking indignantly, and she almost drops the bat as the vibrations roll up her arms, making her palms feel strange, but once it stops, she gamely steps up to the plate again. It's not long until she's beating the shit out of it, hit after hit accompanied with a litany of grief and rage. 

She loses herself to it, only stops to swig, until she can't feel her hands anymore and has to drop the bat to the forest floor with an earthy thud. When she stops, though, the sound of bat-on-metal doesn't, and she can hear Sarah's yells and tears. She doesn't stop to look - doesn't want to break Sarah's moment - and heads back to the house. She has no doubt this time that Sarah will come back when she's ready; she hasn't lost her, not today. 

When she gets back to the house, she makes a sandwich and leaves it covered on the kitchen counter, and goes to sleep off the quarter bottle of whiskey she's somehow consumed. Later, when she wakes and goes back downstairs, the sandwich is gone, and an empty beer bottle holds down a scrawled note that simply says, 'Thanks'.

*

She dreams through her time with Sarah at the cabin, training and training and - eventually - talking and talking. The baseball bat day leaves conversation a bit easier between them, and with only each other for company, it’s only natural that they eventually start to open up. Sarah’s gruff, but Dani’s been learning her language - she knows that the sharpness of Sarah’s words, the minimalist approach she has to human contact: it’s not a reflection on Dani herself. 

One of her proudest moments, a moment that starts to make her feel human again, is when, three months after the dam, she manages to make Sarah laugh. She forgets what she said; instead, the dream focuses on the surprise on Sarah’s face when Dani's joke lands. It’s like the laugh that’s coming out of her mouth is a sound she’s forgotten she could make; like the unfettered nature of her amusement, the way the laugh bubbles up from inside her uncontrollably, is a bodily malfunction she’s a little discomfited by, something she doesn’t remember how to ride out. Dani sees the laughter-lines crinkle at the corner of Sarah’s eyes in perfect dream-clarity; sees her face, transformed by laughter and beautiful with it, so different to her normal dour countenance. 

It’s not long before Dani has to join in, and the shared laughter heals something between them, something Dani didn’t even know was broken. 

The dream re-visits things like this; things that help to heal the memory of the dam fight, that help to heal her in its aftermath. 

Things like: Sarah beating the shit out of Carl’s gun-range targets with a baseball bat when she’s had a bad day, because that's their thing now; Sarah removing every picture of Carl from the house except one, that she doesn’t think Dani knows that she has; them grilling on the back porch, sitting in dappled sunlight, eating quietly together; them talking, learning, growing together. 

It’s when they start to get really bored, about six months in, when the training has plateaued, when they need a break from Terminators and Apocalypses and fire and brimstone, that things take a turn. It starts when they start relaxing, just an inch, when the days stop becoming about training and preparing and learning. One night, shooting practice accidentally becomes a shooting competition, with the targets set becoming increasingly ridiculous. They’re out there for hours, until the light is at the very edge of darkness, and when Sarah wins, bher smugness, her victorious crowing, sets Dani’s teeth on edge.

Next, they turn to the board games they’ve found. The house is surprisingly full of them - especially logic or strategy based games. They spend hours trading victories back and forth in Risk, drafts, backgammon (once they learn how to play). It turns out, Dani’s a pretty competitive person. She never really knew that about herself before, but it’s definitely something she learns, playing board-games against Sarah. She’s getting more strategic, winning about half of the time, using her brain in ways she didn’t know she could, but they find that she never can beat Sarah at chess. It's driving her bananas. 

The dream skips on: one late night, a week later, Sarah is celebrating another chess victory. Dani’s examining the board, trying to figure out how Sarah’s always one move ahead, and she glances up. Her gaze sticks: it sticks to Sarah’s satisfied, lidded gaze; to her lips as they spread in a shit-eating grin; to her insouciant posture as she leans back in her chair, her feet braced on the coffee table, lean and strong. 

She realises a millisecond after Sarah does that she’s stared a second too long, and blinks and looks away, makes some excuse to go and check the weapon bunker, even though it’s late, before Sarah can say anything stupid. 

They don’t speak of it for weeks. 

*

When they do, it’s because Dani catches Sarah checking out her ass. She’s down under the sink, looking for something, and when she stands and turns Sarah’s eyes don’t move fast enough to hide just exactly where they’d been planted. 

Dani opens her mouth to - what? Challenge Sarah? Complain? Argue? But Sarah just looks her in the eye and shrugs unapologetically, humming to herself as she turns away to head to another part of the house. 

The dream speeds through Dani’s umm’ing and ahh’ing, taking her to the point where she’s followed Sarah out onto the back decking, and she’s saying in a slightly too-high pitched voice, “What was that?” 

“What did it look like?” The tone is nonchalant, but Dani’s been with Sarah for too long now, and the way she isn’t quite meeting her gaze, isn’t quite as slouched as she normally is, tells Dani volumes. 

Dani sighs, puts her hands on her hips. Her tone is slightly sarcastic when she says, “It looked like you checking out my ass, Sarah.” 

“Then it looked like exactly what it was.” Sarah swigs, shrugs, finally makes eye contact. The studied indifference is palpable, radiating from her. “It’s a nice ass.” 

“Sarah!” 

“Oh, get down off that horse, Miss High and Mighty,” Sarah snorts. “Like you didn’t check me out the other day. Checked me out after check-mate. Get it?” She snorts at her own terrible humour, and Dani rolls her eyes. 

“That was different,” she shoots back, but there’s a quaver of uncertainty in her tone and damn, she knows Sarah hears it. 

There’s a moment of silence, before Sarah sighs, steps forward just a little into Dani’s personal space. “We’re here, alone. Together. And we’re bored.” She adds, when Dani says nothing. She raises her eyebrows, like she really doesn’t want to have to spell this out for Dani. She wants to say something, but thoughts of Grace are suddenly piling into her mind; she feels guilt for even entertaining the idea of any kind of sex. Bodily reaction meets mental confusion, and she shakes her head to clear it. She looks at Sarah, and off that look, the other woman raises her hands, takes a step back: Dani’s not the only one who’s been learning to read her housemate. 

“Take your time. Don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I just thought it might help...pass the time.” 

“Sarah…”

“I’m not trying to take the place of a dead girl, honey. I know what this would be.” 

The words catch her off guard, empty her lungs of air for just a moment, and she gapes at Sarah. Anger, swift and fiery, spikes up her spine, squares her shoulders and shapes a snarl on her face, but her background brain supplies: Sarah is not confrontational. She’s speaking what she sees. And her anger drains. 

“I’ll think about it,” she murmurs, and Sarah nods, and drains the rest of her beer. 

*  
She does think about it, with increasing regularity as the week comes to a close. Then she tries _not_ to think about it, which only makes her think about it more. She remembers the feel of intimacy, sex, of hands on her body, but that invariably makes her think of _whose_ hands she’s remembering, and then the guilt crashes in, swamping her sex drive, and she retreats from the idea entirely. It helps her to do one thing, though: solidify the idea that she loved - loves - Grace, and she can only hope that somehow, there’s a future in the, well...future, for them. 

Sarah doesn’t push anything, at all, doesn’t even mention it, but there’s no doubt in Dani’s mind that if she offered Sarah anything, it’d be taken up like a shot. The whole thing is just...confusing. Her body _wants_ , but her mind is stuck in a loop of guilt and bewilderment - she doesn’t know how to compute that she might know Grace in the future with the fact her body has needs _now_ \- and why does it seem like Sarah’s t-shirts keep getting tighter, the sleeves shorter? 

Another week passes, and their conversations - usually friendly, usually frequent - are stilted and short, and Dani can’t figure out how to navigate this new terrain back to the raft of camaraderie they’d both built together upon their crazy sea. They’re drifting apart, and she doesn’t know how to fix this. She’s jumpy, and she can tell it’s driving Sarah crazy. Eye contact, especially at night, seems...different, and Dani can feel an awkwardness, a fidgety flightiness that’s animating her muscles uncomftably, start to grow within her. 

It’s Sarah who breaks the pattern; Sarah who fixes them; Sarah who saves them again. 

The dream hop-skips across awkward weeks, until it lands on an evening view. They’re sitting opposite each other over the coffee table- Sarah on the sofa, Dani on a chair they’ve moved into position. The chess board is placed between them, and Dani is, once again, losing. She’s tense; her muscles ache. Even just being close to Sarah sometimes makes her feel guilty, now. 

They’ve been playing for an hour without speaking. There’s music on in the background, treacle-smooth and slow, but Dani doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t focus on it. She’s so focused on the wood beneath her fingers, the smooth shaping of the piece she’s going to move, that she misses Sarah’s first sentence. 

When she realises Sarah’s talking, that low voice cutting through her reverie, it makes her jump so badly the Knight skitters across the table, takes out Sarah’s Bishop at the knees. 

“New way of playing?” She offers with a weak laugh, but Sarah’s staring at her, her gaze unapologetically direct. 

“Stop it,” is all she says. 

“Stop what?” 

“Whatever this is.” Sarah’s jaw clenches. It’s rare that she moves beyond the appearance of her nonchalant, don’t-give-a-fuck space, but she does now, her eyes serious. “Listen," and she leans forward, drawing Dani into into her focus." You have to get that this is nothing but an optional extra. We don’t have to do anything, but either way, but you really need to loosen up. If you don't want to do this, fine, but go hit some things with a bat, get drunk, _something_.”

Dani’s confused, can’t think of anything to say, just swigs her beer and shakes her head, and Sarah sighs. “You’re going to be the top dog, okay? You think this is the most awkward thing you’re going to have to deal with? So shake it off.” Sarah sighs, stands, and moves to the kitchen area. Dani can hear her open the fridge, grab another bottle, and then she’s back. She brings one for Dani too. 

“You’re going to need to learn to relax,” She says as she sits back down. “To do what you need to do to keep yourself sane in this world. Don’t get so stuck.” Sarah taps the side of her own head with her free hand. “Or you won’t make it.” 

It makes sense, Dani knows it does, but she just feels so tangled in her own stress. “I just...I felt guilty.” It’s the first time she’s vocalised it. She picks at the label on her beer. “Thinking about it.” 

There’s silence, and then: “So you _did_ think about it.”

Dani’s head snaps up; Sarah is smirking, her expression and body language so smug as she stretches on the sofa like a cat, stretching her torso with exaggerated effect, knowing her arms are shown off, that the bottom of her t-shirt rides up. To top it all off, she winks at Dani as she arches a little. It’s all so, so >much...the laugh that leaps out of Dani’s mouth takes her by surprise, but not nearly as much as the genuine smile that touches Sarah’s face when she sees that she made Dani laugh. Dani feels something flood her chest with the realisation that it was a ploy, and a successful one, by Sarah, to get her to loosen up. 

“Yeah,” She manages, when her laughter abates. She sighs, smiles. “Yes, Sarah. I thought about it.” 

“Do it, don’t do it,” Sarah shrugs, “Whatever. I know how you felt about her, and I’m not proposing marriage, okay? Just a mutually beneficial arrangement.” And then she moves a piece on the board, and says, “Checkmate.” 

Dani can’t help but laugh again. Sarah grins. 

*  
Things are much, much easier, after that. It’s not the same as it was, not quite, but it’s close. The only difference is this undercurrent, a tension that wasn’t there previously, bringing into focus things she didn’t notice before; weighting moments differently. She notices the way Sarah moves; the way her hair looks; on a few occasions, her ass. 

Still, the difference is that now, she doesn’t put pressure on herself to be ready for anything; doesn't make it something emotional; doesn’t chastise herself when she thinks about it, but doesn’t force herself to immediately accept and be comfortable about it either. She inhabits a comfortable middle ground, where the idea is there and she can examine it at her own speed. 

They regain their equilibrium - talk is easy, and despite their impending trials, they’re relaxed with each other in a way they haven’t been in a while. Dani is so, so grateful that they're making this - whatever this is - work again. 

It happens the night she wins at chess. 

She’s leaning forward in her chair, elbows on knees and chin in her hand, other hand hovering over a piece. She’s convinced that if she moves the piece into a certain position, that’s it, she’s got her, and she glances up at Sarah to gauge whether the other woman sees her descending hand as a potential threat. 

Sarah’s staring at her chest. 

She doesn’t need to look down to know why - she knows that, at this angle, the tank top she’s wearing is probably showing a little bit too much. It wasn’t deliberate, but Sarah’s stare...She feels a power, strange and new, uncurl in her chest, infusing her limbs with languid strength as she studies Sarah’s direct gaze.

Her hand hovers over the chess piece as she feels that something uncoiling within her, like a sleeping dragon awakening. Sarah feels Dani’s eyes, starts, brings her eyes up to Dani’s with a look that’s half-apologetic, half pointed lust, and it’s like Dani knows the movements to a dance without having to learn it; knows every move her body could make and how it could be received. 

A low thrumming has started in her abdomen: a warmth spreads through her, and she can hear the bass drum of her heart in her ears. She _gets_ it now, gets everything Sarah was trying to say about it being casual, about it being a _release_ , about it being a necessary liberation of her own body from the stress, the tension of their situation. She feels a deep kind of understanding coupled to a joy that tumbles through her. She understands that she can love Grace - now, then, always - and have gratification; that she's a woman with a long way to go. She feels the anticipation in the sensitivity of her skin, the dryness of her mouth, the pulse of arousal in her body. 

Sarah’s licking her lips, and Dani’s eyes follow the motion. She reaches out without breaking eye contact, picks up the piece, and tips over Sarah’s queen. “Checkmate,” she whispers. 

Then she’s out of her chair, stepping onto and over the coffee table, scattering chess pieces under her boot, and she slides onto Sarah’s lap, rests her hands on the back of the sofa, braces herself above Sarah. There’s an animalistic beauty to Sarah that here, in this moment, Dani finds captivating. She stares down, feels Sarah’s hands, weapon-roughed and strong, encircle her waist, slip under her shirt. 

“You want this?” Sarah’s voice is lower than usual. It’s deliciously rough, and Dani feels it on the back of her neck, the inside of her wrist. She finds herself nodding before she consciously recognises her acquiescence. “Remember,” Sarah’s hands slide up her back, and then back down with the barest hint of nail employed. Dani arches, hisses; this is so, so different from Grace, but in every look and action Sarah promises release, relief; a damn good roll in the hay. "This is nothing but a good time."

Dani’s ready. “I get it, Sarah,” is all she has to say, and the other woman grins.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while :) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy - I'm a little rusty. 
> 
> More to come next week, fingers crossed.

After they sleep together the first time, right there on the couch, Dani doesn’t know what to expect...but honestly, nothing really changes for them at all, aside from the fact that they now have more options on how to spend their evenings, other than just boardgames or drinking. 

Their new reality...It’s not mired in drama like she half expected. No-one develops ‘feelings’, nor do they ever have to have ‘the talk’. It’s exactly what Sarah promised, no more and no less, and Dani will forever be grateful. Plus, y’know, the sex is pretty fucking awesome. 

The one thing she does notice is that they don’t really kiss, not like she and Grace did. It seems to be an unspoken thing; where once would have been passionate intent delivered through press of lips and whispered declarations, now there’s Sarah’s low voice (good _Lord_ that woman knows how to talk dirty), and teeth pressed against her throat, her shoulder. It’s all good. Also, boy does Sarah know some interestingly...specific Spanish. 

(She asks her once, to pass the salt at the table as a test, and Sarah just blinks at her owlishly for a long minute before handing her the ketchup. Later that night, she asks Sarah to go down on her, and the wolfish smile that immediately appears on Sarah’s face tells her everything she needs to know). 

Before she knows it, a year has passed. Her dream skims through the minutia, snapshotting moments as she and Sarah do their best to prepare for what’s coming. Here: they’re side by side, testing every kind of weapon on Carl’s range, Sarah giving her pointers. Here: They're going through every hand-to-hand trick Sarah knows, talking about how to fight Machines. There: They make one last ditch attempt to try and find Legion before it happens, but once again they come up empty. Whatever it is, whatever it starts as, it’s not called Legion yet. 

Dani wonders, sometimes, if that’s what it decides to call itself. It’s one of the more disquieting thoughts she has, one of the thoughts that somehow, makes Legion all the more frightening to her. 

They keep an eye on Grace, but she never gets into any trouble, and the family is settled and happy. It’s an easy job. What’s harder is for Dani to grasp, even after a year out here with Sarah, that she truly is the saviour. Out there, in the forest, the reality of it seems so far away. Without Grace and Carl as tangible reminders of a Machine-based future, without the constant sense of dread that came along with being stalked by the Rev-9, the sense of purpose she’s based her mental stability on waivers. Is it really going to happen? She thinks, as she and Sarah play chess and drink. Is it really her future? She wonders, as she laughs when a fridge magnet gets a little too personal as Sarah pushes her up against the fridge with intent in her eyes. 

One evening, sitting in the garden of the house she now thinks of as _theirs_ more than _Carl's_ , watching the sunlight flicker and dance through the trees, listening to birdsong and sounds of the forest, she feels...content. For the first time, in a long time, she's just...her. The apocalypse seems so far away. Too far. For a second she questions whether any of this is real, whether it’s all meant to be happening to her, and that second turns into minutes, into a sudden and deep unrest that unbalances her. It’s taken a year for her fear to pounce, for her to _really_ feel like an imposter in this situation, to _really_ feel like the mantel she’d semi-accepted under duress was never meant to fit, but feel it she does. This isn’t the same as her fear, her feeling of unreality when creatures from science fiction became whole and real and very much trying to kill her, no. This is the realisation of how much time is stretching away before her, and the truth - the sheer amount of responsibility - of what she needs to do in that time, the weight of how in that time she’s going to have to be strong, repeatedly, consistently, unwaveringly and without question, and her mind rebels. 

The feeling that she can’t do this, that _she can’t do this_ , always present and under her skin, leaps to the fore of her mind. Even if - IF - this is all true, who is she kidding? She’s counting off the things she’s supposed to do with increasing fear, increasing anxiety in her mind: 1) She’s supposed to make it through Judgement Day, a miracle in and of itself, 2) she’s supposed to raise a militia, 3) she’s supposed to turn that militia into an army, 4) she’s supposed to give the people _hope_...and while doing all these things, she's supposed to overcome the endemic racism and sexism so unquestioningly conditioned into every facet of the society, the _planet_ she's trying to save? 

No. She’s just a woman - this she knows. She’s just a woman. The saviour should be some good-looking, buff white guy, right? Not a scared, short Mexican woman. Come on, like they would ever show something like that in a movie, or on TV...the truth of it ripples through her: she’s never seen the like of it, and that fact grounds her more into her fear. How is she supposed to become the leader Grace told her she was? The reality of the situation is thus: when she tries to picture herself at the head of the table, that seat is always, always taken by a man. She doesn’t feel like she should sit there at all. 

Maybe Grace was mistaken, maybe something’s changed, maybe she doesn’t need to be this person at all, which is great, because clearly, she can’t be anyway. Surely the fact that she’s feeling these fears, suffering these anixeties - surely that’s proof enough that it shouldn’t be her? A guy would never have such weakness within, such frailty. She feels a longing, tangible and solid and much more real to her than some fairy tale of a robot apocalypse: a longing for home, for familiarity, her friends, her _language_. 

Before she can overthink it, she’s up and away from the table, into the house, into the room she’s claimed as hers, and pulling an old duffel bag out from under the bed. She’s not being subtle, and the noise isn’t long in pulling Sarah toward it. 

“Giving up?” She asks, calm. Dani glances at her, just once. She’s leaning up against the doorframe of the room, beer in hand. She looks unperturbed. 

“Going home.” Dani clarifies, shoving jeans and vests into the bag with unwarranted haste. 

“Good idea?” She hears Sarah take a swig. 

She shrugs aggressively, doesn’t turn around and continues to pack. “Does it matter?” The bag is nearly full, but she’s done; she doesn’t want Sarah to question her further, doesn’t want to have to unpack her own motives, doesn’t want to have to examine the details of this too closely. She just wants to _run_. 

“Hmm.” Is all she hears from behind her. She tenses, waits for the admonishment she’s sure is coming - can feel it already lashing across her over-tense shoulders like a whip - but there’s nothing. There’s just silence, and the occasional sound of Sarah sipping from her bottle. Then…”Okay.” 

Her hands pause on the zips she’s trying to pull closed too quickly, until she shakes her head, jerks the bag closed properly, hoists it onto her shoulder and pushes past the other woman, stomping down the stairs in so much haste she misses one near the bottom and has to catch herself on the banister. 

She’s halfway across the lounge before the anger, the confusion, the fear balls itself up inside her and comes out as, _“Okay?!”_

Sarah, halfway through lazily slouching down the stairs, almost looks genuinely surprised at the outburst. “Okay.” She gets to the bottom of the stairs, heads to the kitchen, grabs a beer and returns, all with the same unhurried air that makes Dani’s already fevered brain boil. 

“Just...Okay?!” 

“Sure.” 

Sarah’s bland acquiescence to her retreat is so abruptly startling that she drops her bag and stares. Does Sarah not care that she’s abandoning her post? That she’s abandoning _her?_ That she’s suddenly filled with fear so overwhelming that she can’t think about tomorrow, never mind the next year or the year after that? Is she not even going to ask _why?_

She opens her mouth, raises her hands to shape her words, raises her gaze to Sarah’s eyes, takes a deep breath, but when she tries to express herself, all that comes to the fore is fear, making her eyes tear up unexpectedly and taking all her air, and she can do nothing but gasp. 

Sarah, for a second, just holds her gaze, and despite her insocient posture, in her eyes Dani can see withheld emotion, burning brightly. Then Sarah steps forward without hesitation and across the room, into Dani’s space and gathers her up, holds her tight, grounds her even as Dani feels the floor waver beneath her feet as tears flow and breath escapes her in a moaning, hitching lament of fear and anxiety. 

She wants to explain, wants to tell Sarah everything she’s feeling - how it’s too big, how it’s too much waiting, how much she feels like an imposter to a command she doesn’t even have yet - but all she can do is cling and cry, and all Sarah does is hold her as the emotion passes through her. 

Dani doesn’t know how long it takes for her tears to slow down and her breath to return to a semi-normal state, but eventually she feels like she can pull back, that she can give Sarah the explanation she obviously deserves. 

When she does pull back, and she opens her mouth to speak, Sarah shakes her head and, with two fingers under Dani’s chin, pushes her jaw closed sealing off her words. Dani’s confused, until she looks at Sarah’s expression, looks at her eyes, and it’s all there. The fear that Sarah's shared, the feelings of powerlessness, the shared experience of being in the same boat, the difficulty of holding on to the reality of it sometimes, and underneath it all, Sarah’s unwavering belief in her. Sarah holds her gaze for a moment, and then half-smiles. Dani drinks it all in, feels it all settle within her, feels it all settle _her_. 

“Okay?” Sarah asks, soft and low. 

“Okay,” Dani replies, and after a moment, she takes her bag back upstairs. 

When she comes back down, there’s a sandwich and a beer on the table, and she can hear the staccato pop of shots from the range. When she’s done with the sandwich, she leaves a little note under the empty plate, and heads upstairs for a bath. 

*

She awakens with a start back in the here-and-now on the sofa in her rooms, achingly aware for a second of the lack of Grace’s presence, so used as she is to waking up with her now. The lack of an arm over her waist, warmth at her back, breath on the back of her head...it causes an ache she can't describe, an ache she's never felt before, to bloom within her.

Stretching, she can still feel the trauma of the previous days events sitting in her chest, her muscles, and when she tries to sit up it’s with a groan and a wince. Still, she’s there, she’s whole, and she has a job to do. She’s at her office early, sitting behind her desk, and unlike her dream, now she feels a sense of belonging, of certainty - she’s no longer an imposter, no longer feels unsure, at least in this one thing, and that’s so, so comforting right now. 

She wishes, deep down, just for a moment, so badly that Sarah is here, that she could talk to her about Grace. She wishes it so deeply that it makes her breath catch, before she puts the grief away. She doesn’t have time for it, not today. 

When her own work is finished, and she’s made sure with Peralta that there’s nothing urgent on the table for the rest of the day, she tells him she’s taking half a personal day. She can tell, in the relaxing of his shoulders, in the uptick in his expression, that he’s relieved, that he thinks this is a good idea, and he nods, tells her to get some rest. 

But rest, that’s not exactly what she has in mind. She heads back to her rooms, spends the next couple of hours finishing up her notes, re-reads them, adds in a few bits that occur to her as she does so, and puts them all neatly in a folder that she then tucks into a bag, tucking a few other essential items in with it. 

She’s tried talking to Grace at her barracks, and that hasn’t worked, so, like any good strategist, she’ll try changing her tactics. Her timeline notes are as complete as they’re going to get - the story told from her point of view as a woman, and from her point of view as a soldier, pertinent information wrapped around an emotional core - and really, when she thinks about it, there’s only one possible way this is going to work; only one plan she can really put together that feels like it’s the right thing to do. 

She calls for a courier, sends a message to Grace at her barracks, a message for her to meet her in a few hours, and then heads out. 

*

A few hours later, the ruined house is as close as she can make it to the memory of their first date. She’s lit candles with a refillable lighter, flickering on windowsills and in hidden recesses, filling the interior with warm, lambent light that dances among winding ivy and honeysuckle. 

She has a blanket spread out underneath her, and a tupperware filled with sandwiches; liquor (she’s going to need it, they both are) is also present, more akin to paint thinner than actually drinkable booze, but it’s what was available. She moves it away from a candle by the edge of the blanket, just to be safe - she suspects 'flammable' may not be the half of it when it comes to that particular booze. She looks around, nods: the place looks good.

The only difference between tonight and their first date, really, is the temperature. 

It’s _freezing_. Well, not literally, but it feels like it, as she blows on her fingers, and shifts her weight from foot to foot to keep warm. Weather is normally something she takes into consideration when planning anything, seeing as it can affect air and ground troops, but somehow this time around it bypassed her completely to check how it was outside. 

Still. She’s here now, she’s committed, she’s a woman of action, and this is her plan, good or not, so here she stands, pacing to keep warm. 

And pacing. And pacing. And pacing. A light but cold rain starts to fall, and within minutes she’s cold _and_ wet, shivering under her coat. Two of the candles around her in the walls fizzle out. 

She waits for as long as she thinks is reasonable, and then she waits a whole lot longer, but it’s becoming clear: Grace isn’t coming. 

She hangs her head, feels the cold rain slide across her scalp between her braids, feels a drop travel down her forehead and along the length of her nose. It falls and she watches it fall through the waning candlelight, golden fractals caught in its tumbling form, holding her breath until it smashes into the already sodden blanket and the tremulous beauty it holds is lost. That breaks her out of her spell, and she pulls herself together, puts on her bag with the file in it, bends down and folds the blanket carefully, tucks the sandwiches and base-made booze under her arm, while around her a few more candles lose their battle with the weather, caught by the rain at last in their hiding places, and she’s shrouded in shadow. She stands slowly, taking deep breaths, trying not to let the fragility she feels within translate to her body without. 

It’s then that she sees someone. 

They’re in the doorway, staring, silent, eyes visible in the semi-light. Already shaken, Dani feels the sandwiches and blanket slip from her grasp - although she manages to catch the liquor - frozen fingers trembling at the sight of the other woman. Her mind calls out, _Grace!_ , at the same time as her mouth does. 

There's no movement for a long, long moment, until the figure steps forward slowly. “You’re here alone?” They ask, and she’s nodding before it registers with her what an odd question that is, and that it’s not quite Grace’s voice doing the asking, and then she’s peering a little harder at the shadow before her. 

“Step into the light,” She says, and she can’t help the quiver of fear that claims her voice, shapes it into something tremulous instead of something commanding. Even as the figure steps forward and takes shape in the gloom of the house, she feels fear batter her walls, swamp her senses. 

It’s not Grace. 

It’s no-one she knows, not from the first glance she gets as they step into the faint remnant of candlelight that remains and face Dani across the ruined floor. As soon as she gets a good look, she knows: it’s no-one she _can_ know, not anymore. There’s no thing on Earth that has movements so informed with purpose, so imbued with precision, as a Terminator, and she knows that one stands before her now. 

It’s finally happened: the Machines have cracked the Revs infiltration capability. 

And now they’re here. 

*

Her mind accelerates, looking for loopholes, escapes, anything. 

“Dani Ramos,” The Machine says, losing its ‘human’ mannerisms, standing unnaturally still. 

“Negative,” She murmurs, playing for time. “I am, uh, a meat popsicle.” 

‘Playing for time’, though, is utterly irrelevant with a Machine who’s only thought, only goal is to kill you, and it’s stepping forward before she’s finished the pithy remark. Still, though, it’s given her time to work the cork out of the liquor bottle with her thumb, and even as it launches forward to attack, she’s swigging and bringing her lighter to her lips. 

She spits just in time, the flame of her lighter catching the liquor as it leaves her lips, the face of the oncoming machine disappearing in a fiery haze, temporarily blind. Dani empties her lungs as best she can and then she’s throwing herself to the side, rolling out from under outstretched arms and sprinting for the doorway as soon as she rolls to her feet. Within seconds, the wall of the ruined home explodes outward as the Machine - the Rev-4, she realises - takes a much more direct route toward its quarry. 

Still, this is an army base, and a very well maintained one - she turns down the nearest street and a patrol is visible, heading away from her. She’s not sure what she manages to shout to get their attention, but it’s enough - they stop their vehicle, confused, and lights come on in the few habitable houses around her. 

It won’t be enough. They’re too far away, too confused at what's happening on a dark street, and she can hear the too-heavy pounding footsteps of the Rev as it gets closer and closer. She’s still yelling at the soldiers on guard duty, but they're not moving fast enough, and she glances over her shoulder, only to see the Rev-4 jumping, leaping at her with terrifying power, lifting off the ground in a way no human could ever hope to emulate.

 _Fuck_ , is the only thing she can think at that moment. She can’t believe it ends like this, before she can fix things with Grace, fuck _fuck_ fuck. 

_No._ It won’t. It can’t. She won’t let it. She can buy herself a few seconds somehow, surely. There has to been something. She’s not the scared young woman she was anymore. She's Commander Ramos, and she will _live_. Glancing around as the housing around her stirs, as lights click on, she sees, in the glow of a newly flickering porch light, hope. 

She changes direction at the very last second, feels the displacement of air behind her as the Rev4 lands where she was, hears the consternation of the guards as they see the superhuman effort of something in the darkness and start reversing toward her, hears the Rev change direction with implacable concentration, unphased, unfrustrated, just coming and coming and coming. 

She hits the porch at a run as she hears the machine behind her pounce again, bends down, grabs what she can and turns, bracing herself on one knee as the machine descends, arms outstretched. It sees what she’s holding a second too late. 

The garden fork takes it through the throat. 

It does some damage. The machine stumbles, and clearly she’s hit something that controls its motor function, but it’s not enough. One arm goes for the haft of the tool, the other grabs Dani’s arm before she can let go and she can’t help but cry out as Machine strength compresses her limb, pain blooming under its touch so powerfully her leg buckles and she drops to kneeling, legs suddenly weak. With one heave, the machine throws her through the wooden fencing around the porch she’s on, and before she realises it, she’s coughing and winded in the middle of the road, the Machine advancing on her with a hampered, limping gait, but no less terrifying for it. 

She’s bought herself a few seconds but enough? No. Not for the guards, as desperate as they are, to reach her before the Machine can rip the fork out of its parody of a throat and reverse the tool, rusty tines ready to be thrust down and through the vulnerable flesh of her oh-too-human body. 

There’s nothing she can do, panting in the dirt of the road, clutching her arm, feeling blood trickle down her face. Nothing she can do at all. 

She closes her eyes, draws what grace to her she can, and whispers, “Grace, forgive me.” 

The shot takes her by surprise. Her eyes fly open as the sound shatters the moment, bringing her back to the here and now. The Machine stumbles mid-step, and it’s enough, dear God it’s enough, for her to get her feet under her and limp-run toward the arriving guards 

There’s another shot, then another, and then she’s out of the way by the guard vehicle, breathing hard, her body flaring with reports of pain and injury, her heart beating out of her damn chest. She turns. Her soldiers, her people - they’re standing in their doorways in pajamas, or half-dressed, aiming their weapons and firing to protect their Commander, taking the Machine down in the middle of the base street even as it turns toward her. 

It has one last ploy, even as rounds punch into it from both sides, caught in an impromptu kill-zone as it is. Its arm raises, skin now hanging torn and useless, revealing the dark monstrous truth beneath, and lets fly the garden fork, the tool leaving its grip with surreal speed. 

Dani barely knows what she’s doing as she pushes the nearest guard away screaming, ‘Down!’, but it’s too late even as she twists to avoid it - pain, white hot and vicious, trails across her back as she’s knocked into the guards vehicle with a force that leaves her gasping, tumbling to the floor in a heap. 

She has to lie there for a long, long moment, convinced her body will give up on her any second, before she realises she doesn’t feel the sickly draining of energy that means she’s losing blood; doesn’t feel the loss of will that means she’s bleeding out on the cold, wet road. 

Slowly, slowly, her breath comes back. Her back doesn’t hurt any less, but she’s alive, and whole, and - mostly, somewhat - uninjured. It’s a miracle. She feels hands under her arms as she struggles to her feet with a cry, and when she opens her eyes, she can see the garden fork quivering in the side of the jeep next to her, tines buried as far as they will go in the metal of the door. She has a terrible moment of seeing herself pinned under it, pinned to the jeep, but she’s not - she’s here, she’s alive. 

Within a moment, the householders who shot at the Machine are on her, wide-eyed, panicked, unbelieving of the scene they’ve just witnessed. 

“C-Commander?” One of them manages. To her surprise, she’s still wearing her bag; it slaps against her hip as she turns to them. She can see one of the the guard checking her back, shaking his head in relief. 

"It, it must have just grazed you Commander." She nods, hides the pain she’s feeling as best she can, thanks him for looking.

She's already back in full Commander Ramos mode, and says to the collected people around her, “You, and you,” she points to the house-holders with guns. “Keep your guns trained until a retrieval team gets here. If it so much as flinches, take it to pieces.” They nod, despite the rain and their night attire, and take up positions around the body. 

“You,” She says to one guard, “Wake up the rest of the street. Anyone with weapons, get them out here and covering that thing. And you,” to the other. “Drive.” 

They both nod, and soon, she’s ensconced in the jeep (after they’ve removed the offending fork), and heading across a base that’s being roused out of slumber to stand against a new foe. 

*

"Medical, ma'am?” The guard asks, as he starts the engine, and, well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? 

For herself: She should go to medical, get checked out, make sure she’s in tip-top shape. 

For the base: She should go to HQ, rouse everyone, and get the infiltration protocols she’s put in place for this very eventuality rolled out and implemented as soon as humanly possible.

The world needs Commander Ramos, but...what does she need? There’s no room in this world for romanticism, no room for selfishness, is there?

She hesitates for just a second, then gives the guard her order, and leans back in the seat as he pulls away.

When they arrive, she has to take the guards hand to get out of the jeep. She’s already stiffening up so much, and she hates it but she does it without complaint, desperate as she is to get inside. There’s only one thought on her mind, and she knows it’s the wrong one, knows she should be focused on the many over the one, but she...she just can’t.

She's stares at the building before her, wondering if she's made the right choice for a moment, but she knows she has. Not as Commander Ramos, leader of the resistance, but as Dani, a woman who needs the woman she loves to _understand_. There was only one choice, really. 

Grace’s barracks are humming, units being awoken to increase the guard capacity, men and women running back and forth. She feels her heart rising in her chest as she makes it through the building with slow but inexorable purpose. 

But...When she gets to Grace’s unit, the rooms are already empty. Fuck. It takes her a minute, a minute of silent disbelief, of _this isn't how this was supposed to go_ , before her body betrays her thoughts and her shoulders slump, her head drops forward. Okay. Okay. 

She limps back to the jeep, climbs carefully in, directs him to HQ. She doesn’t know where else to go, and she’s tried her best, she truly has, but the slip-slide of hope through her fingers tells her everything about how this night is ending. The taste in her mouth is bitter, the set of her lips a moue of pain and disappointment, and her heart beats a little less hopefully in her chest than it did a few hours before. 

She again needs his hand to get down, and takes a moment to stretch before she goes in, feeling the vertebrae settle in her back, feeling bruised and broken skin stretch and flair with pain. She hisses, then sets her shoulders and limps inside. 

HQ is an ants nest of activity, people to-ing and fro-ing, lights and sound spilling out of nearly every office. It quiets as she enters, though, as people see her, bruised and bloodied as she is. Several people move to help, but Peralta is there suddenly, flinging himself through the crowded hallway, his expression a mix of worry and fierce anger. 

He's is on her almost immediately, “Jesus, Ramos, what happened?” He says, as the noise around them restarts. 

They’re moving toward her office, slowed by her limp. “We need to implement infiltrator protocol. Imme-”

There’s sounds behind her, a voice raised, then questions, raised voices. Through it all, one voice reaches her ears, clarion clear over the hubbub. 

“Dani!” 

It’s Grace, fighting toward her, pushing senior officers aside, coming as relentlessly as a Terminator. “Dani! Please!”

Silence descends on the hallway as people, sensing a scene, quiet down, wait for something more. At Dani’s lack of resistance to Grace’s approach, and so desperate does she seem, no-one tries to stop her, despite her obvious disregard of protocol. 

“Dani!” Finally, she’s close. Dani can see rain-slicked hair, damp clothing, chilled skin and desperation in wide, wide eyes. “You’re okay! Thank God, oh...I didn’t know.” And Grace is planting a fist in her own belly like she can’t breath, pressing down hard, the other hand covering her own mouth. “They said you were hurt...I went to medical...I didn’t…” 

There are tears in her eyes, and all the anger, the sadness, the disappointment Dani’s carrying at Grace not turning up is subdued under that gaze for long enough for her to say, “My office.” 

She turns and limps on. Peralta grabs her elbow, stopping her just for a second. His eyes are understanding but his tone is not when he says, “Commander...Is now really the time…?” 

She shakes her head, adrenalin withdrawal leaving her feeling small and tired and in so much pain, and meets his eyes squarely. “It’s the only time,” She says simply, and shakes off his hand.


End file.
